


The Pinocchio Illusion

by ShannonXL



Series: Body of Evidence [2]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bad Medical Procedure, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Body Modification, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canonical Child Abuse, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Child Soldiers, Consent Issues, Department X, Emotional Manipulation, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Fights, Food Issues, Gender Issues, Gynecological Exam, Hydra (Marvel), Hypervigilance, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Incest, Manipulation, Medical Examination, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Natasha Romanov, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Platonic Romance, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychological Torture, Red Room, Speculum, Spy Natasha Romanov, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 35
Words: 111,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonXL/pseuds/ShannonXL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p class="p1">
  <em>You might not want to pull on that thread.</em>
</p><p>Natasha has never been good at taking her own advice. She has a trail to follow. A history to unravel. She can feel it in her bones. Without anyone issuing commands, without any covers to hide behind, who will the infamous Black Widow become? The events following Captain America: The Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Attack

There’s a gym downtown with an unmonitored employee entrance. Natasha has a membership, but she doesn’t need anyone to see her coming and going. It’s midday, so the building is practically empty. Just a few meatheads that know by now to leave her alone. 

She slips inside, shutting the door behind her. The laundry room is nearby, and the stench of sweat is masked by the odor of detergents and bleach. There’s a locker down the hall that she’s been sharing with a slightly paranoid S.H.I.E.L.D. hacker. They’ve been dropping data back and forth for months, She’s willing to exchange the recording of Rumlow’s interview (with a few seconds redacted) for the last package, the file on the Winter Soldier she’s considering handing off to Rogers. 

She steps past the line of dryers, ignoring them as they rattle behind her. When she hears the heavy footfall, she’s expecting it. 

She deflects the blow when the assailant reaches for her, grabbing his arm. He thought he'd catch her unaware. Natasha ducks, pulling him over her back and flipping him down onto the concrete. Not pausing, she yanks one of the dryers, and it tears away from the wall, falling with a deafening clatter. She hears a crunch as a strong, metal arm catches it, denting the machine. 

She bolts.

When he chases after her, she’s ready. The garrote is in her hand, and she whips it around his neck. He catches it, but she knew he’d be prepared for that weapon. Which is why she was only using it as a decoy. She lets him swing her around, crashing into the wall of the narrow passageway as she careens forwards, knife in hand. The shock is absorbed by her injured shoulder- she ignores it. Natasha plunges the knife into the joint where his acromion would have been. The metal fingers twitch, but the arm is temporarily disabled. 

The Winter Soldier snarls at her. 

He tries again to grab her, but she runs, kicking herself off the wall to catapult into him. He catches her and they roll. Natasha digs her fingers into the his skin of his human arm and tears. Her grip turns bloody and hot. He flinches, but doesn’t let go. She slams his back into the concrete wall and he loosens his hold on her, just enough to allow her to slip out of his grasp while he’s still recovering. She goes for one of his guns, but he manages to swat her hand away. Strong, but heavy, and the arm is dead weight when he can’t use it. 

He gets up fast, faster than the thugs she’s used to, and she has to run again, this time leaping high in the air, latching onto one of the pipes in the ceiling. It breaks as she twists back down, too much rust on the joint. She readjusts her grip and swings it at his head. He ducks, of course, retaliating, but she’s already dodging his punch. Natasha slams the base of the pipe down on the back of his fist, and he yelps. 

Changing tactics, he body slams her, using the metal arm as both battering ram and shield. She’s thrown backwards, and something pops in her right shoulder. He doesn’t strike right away, but she doesn’t think for a second that he’s done. She swings at him with the pipe, and he blocks her one-handed. Natasha manages to slam her elbow up into his nose, breaking it. She uses the moment he’s stunned to get behind him and hit him in the back of the head with the pipe. Shock to the ocular lobe causes temporary blindness, and he stumbles, using his other senses to try and find her.

But the thrumming of the laundry machines and the smell of the bleach are all working in her favor. Knowing she doesn’t have long before his vision returns (judging by Steve’s recovery time), she kicks his knee out from underneath him, and pins him to the floor, the pipe pressed against his neck. Natasha waits until he opens his eyes again, looking right up at her. She doesn’t need to pretend to be vicious. She’s read his file. She has no doubt that he’s read hers. 

“Let me be clear with you, Soldier. You are only alive because Steve Rogers doesn’t want you dead. Personally, I wouldn’t be upset if he never found you. So you’re going to tell me exactly what you think you’re here for, and if I don’t like your answer, I’m going to break your neck.”

The Soldier glares up at her, and she can see him calculating the tactics available to disarm her. He could do it, given time. She’s not going to let him have the opportunity. It’s nothing personal. She’s just not in the mood to get punched in the face by a cybernetic metal fist. 

“I came for you.”

His voice is calm and even. He’s not even out of breath. She doesn’t move.

“On whose orders?”

His jaw works, tight muscles clenching underneath his cheeks.

“I need you.”

There’s tension in between his eyebrows. She looks for the signs of a lie, but it’s no use. He’s been trained by the same people that trained her, for longer than she’s been alive. He knows how to hide his expressions. Even in pain. She grimaces, trying to speak to him in words he might understand.

“Am I your mission?”

“Mission: Defend Hydra.” It’s an automatic response. He closes his eyes briefly, and when he reopens them he doesn’t look away from her. “I need you.”

She presses against his windpipe. He doesn’t wince.

“For what?”

His breath is wheezy, but he’s still not flinching.

“There’s an operation. With many missions. You need to stop it.”

She eases up on the pipe.

“Why me?”

His breathing is even again, as if it was never obstructed in the first place.

“I know what you are looking for.”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“I’ve had enough cryptic assistance from Hydra assassins. Believe me, I was one, I know.” She does another once-over, cataloguing his weapons. A few shiny things here and there, an impressive collection of knives, but nothing she isn’t familiar with. “If I let you up, are you going to try to kill me?”

The Winter Soldier shakes his head. 

She leans back, then stands. He rises slowly, taking an inventory of the damage she’d inflicted. He doesn’t try to remove the knife from his metal shoulder. If he had, she would have subdued him. Instead he looks blankly at her, blinking slowly. 

“Steve Rogers doesn’t want me dead?”

She crosses her arms.

“You dragged him out of the Potomac. I guess he’s dumb enough to think that means something?”

He nods, staring at something past her. She begins a more thorough examination of his appearance, letting herself analyze the details she’d ignored in favor of handing his ass to him. He hasn’t shaved, or been shaved, in days. His hair is mostly hidden beneath a skin-tight black cap, but the strands peeking out behind his ears are long and tangled. He’s pale, probably caused by low blood iron content, but otherwise healthy. There are injuries, but they are healing. His reaction time is good (not as good as it should be, but good), so he’s probably not drugged or in withdrawal. Wide-eyed and strong, heartbeat steady, despite increased stress levels. He swallows, testing his larynx. Shell-shocked, that’s what Rogers would say.

“I do not want Steve Rogers to die.” He looks up at her. He has bright blue eyes.

“You should tell him yourself. Save him a lot of time and aggravation.”

The Soldier grimaces.

“No.”

She huffs.

“You almost did a good job killing him. I guess that was part of your mission?”

He keeps staring. She assumes he does this because he doesn’t know how to respond. It’s not direct enough.

“Was killing Captain Rogers part of your mission, to protect Hydra?”

“Yes,” he grunts.

“Why haven’t you killed him then? Why did you save him instead?”

He winces, as if expecting a blow that’s not coming. She can use that aversion. 

His eyes are shut tight. “I disobeyed,” he whispers, his voice raspy and thin. 

She nods. Whatever this is, she needs to take advantage of it. She knows what Rogers believes, that the man in front of her is the same man he knew in the forties. She also knows he’s wrong. This hollow-eyed ghost might share some DNA with James Buchanan Barnes, but they are not the same person. This man can take a punch, can take a lot more than a punch. His machinery is damaged (read: whatever protocols involved in brainwashing him need to be implemented or updated, his combat performance is sluggish and unimaginative), and his equipment needs repair (the arm, a sensitive instrument compromised by the water, but also an old injury in his right leg, and muscular distress caused by prolonged weightlifting is evident in his back when he walks), but he is still dangerous. 

She watches his reactions. 

“What is this operation you want me to stop?”

He stares at the space on the floor between his feet.

“Operation: Orphan.” His voice rumbles. “Prevent duplication by destroying the original model.” He recites. “The reproduction of the Orphan Project will be a great service to Hydra.”

She rests her hand above one of her knives. It’s concealed, but when he looks up at her Natasha knows he recognizes the gesture for what it is. 

“Do you know any more?”

The lines around his eye grow tight, and his throat works for sixteen seconds before he shakes his head.

“I have been ordered to retain sensitive information. I cannot divulge the details of the Operation or any associated missions with enemies.”

She raises her eyebrow.

“Am I an enemy? Little old me?”

His lips quaver. She doesn’t think it’s an act, but that doesn't mean it's not for her benefit. 

“You have been classified an enemy combatant. Natasha Romanoff, known associate of Steven Rogers. Skilled and deadly, command avoid engaging unless required. Parameters of engagement include attack or direct threat to mission integrity. Under no circumstances should the subject be given access to sensitive information. Loyalty currently undetermined.”

“And here I thought they’d want you to shoot me on sight. That’s almost sweet.” She leans down, looking him in the eye. He doesn’t look away, though she can tell it’s a struggle not to. He’s definitely been let loose for too long. “Why do you need me to stop this Operation, Soldier? Is this a command, or something else?”

His jaw is tight.

“Something else.”

She nods for encouragement. 

“And why did you come to me to stop it? Did your Commander send you?”

“Nobody _sent_ me to stop it,” his breathing is slightly erratic. Natasha doesn’t give any ground, but she lets her body get ready to fight him off again. Sluggish and one-armed or no, the Soldier has the advantage of height and weight. 

“Then why did you come? Why do you need me to stop Operation: Orphan?”

He glances away, then looks back. 

“I needed to contact you.” He stops. “No one else will stop it. Steve Rogers won’t stop it. No one else is capable. You are capable. You will do it.”

His programming is interfering with their conversation. It’s annoying. She leans back, shifting her weight to her heels, assessing him. There’s only so much she can gain from talking to him directly. It would be useful to tail him, see where he goes and who he speaks to. If there’s even anyone left for him _to_ speak to (speaking: unlikely to be part of his duties, outside of giving reports and confirming the receipt of orders). It’s not that she doubts her abilities. It’s that she doubts his. He might not have the ability to distinguish between what he’s been ordered to say and what he’s choosing to say. Would he even know if what he’s saying is untrue? 

She makes a decision.

“All right. I’ll help you end this mission.”

His eyes go a little wide, and she thinks an ordinary person would probably feel bad for him; his facial expression is one normally associated with lost puppies.

“I need more information. Anything you can get. Hard copies would be best, but I can work with names, dates, codewords, manifests, any information you’ll be able to deliver without breaching your protocols.”

He nods.

“I will deliver anything not specified by the Mission Head as sensitive.”

She reaches for his hand. After a few seconds, he figures out what she wants him to do, and takes it. She lifts him to his feet.

“Monday. 16:00 hours, Franklin Square Park, northwest corner.”

“Northwest corner, 16:00 hours, Franklin Square Park, Monday. Two days from now. Confirmed.”

Natasha squeezes his hand before letting go. She reaches up, and yanks her knife out of his shoulder. It makes an unpleasant noise, but he barely moves. 

“Have you eaten anything?”

He looks confused by the question. She reconfigures it.

“When is the last time you ate something?”

The Soldiers' lips fold in on themselves twice before he answers.

“Seventeen hours and twenty-six minutes since last intake.”

The timeline makes sense to her. She walks a few feet away, keeping him in her sights through the mirror beside her. She finds the locker, opening it without needing to think about the combination. There’s no new data, but there is something else.

“Here,” she hands him the candy bar. Goplana, with strawberry filling, because her super secret S.H.I.E.L.D. hacker seems to think Russian candies will have some sort of personal significance to her. They don’t, but Natasha has heard that it is the thought that counts, and the process of accepting and reciprocating the presents seems to make the young woman happy. 

The Soldier looks down at the wrapper, lips tracing out the words as he reads. 

“It’s food?”

She watches him as he runs his fingers over the wrapper.

“It tastes sweet. And it has enough calories to quiet your stomach for a few hours.”

He tears the wrapper open, peeling it away, careful to remove it in one piece. He doesn’t spare such delicacy for the chocolate itself; he shoves it in his mouth in one piece, crumbling it up at the end to shove it all inside. He barely chews it before he swallows. She watches, trying to determine whether this is a habit, or something he’s been told to do. It’s unclear, the information sample is too small. 

He continues to stand in front of her, silent and waiting. 

“You’re dismissed, Soldier.”

That makes him move. He leaves, without watching his back, without assuming (like she would assume) that he’s about to be attacked because he’s left an enemy behind. Natasha waits fourteen minutes before resetting her dislocated right shoulder against the wall. 

Natasha considers the wreckage in the locker room and the preceding hallways. Too much DNA to be sampled from it. There is bleach in the laundry room, high-grade stuff. The clean-up process is efficient and familiar, another thing she doesn’t have to think about doing. 

The fact that the building is now compromised is inconvenient, but she has backups. She cleans, does a final sweep, and then removes all of her supplies, placing the extra clothes, weapons, ammunition, cash, and falsified identification documents in a canvas laundry bag. There’s nothing to be done for the physical damage to the building, but she chose this gym because of the inattentive management. It will never be traced back to her. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm *really* excited to start posting this. It's been in my brain for a while. Thanks so much to nighmetalmousie for being the best beta ever and letting me send increasingly ridiculous and frantic text messages as I worked out the excessively dense plot. 
> 
> A few housekeeping notes: I did my best to tag everything, but I'll probably have to update as I go along, because I'm sure I've missed something.   
> Because the chapters are all pretty long, updates for this fic are going to be every other week.


	2. Aprosodia

The apartment building should be under better surveillance. All the local defense teams have been recalled, with manpower spread so thin, but they should have been replaced with drones, at the very least. Natasha is not impressed. By fault of design, the complex is difficult to secure, but it appears that no one has tried. It is vulnerable from the roof, from the fire escapes on both the north and west sides, and there is minimal security at the main building entrance (one lock on the front door, easy to pick, often unnecessary due to the polite old lady who lives on the second floor and walks her dog at predictable intervals). Easy to assail. Inadequate protection. It’s no wonder Fury was shot here. 

It’s safe to assume Steve wasn’t thinking about modern safety protocols when he chose the building. It’s not a specialty of his. None of the dogs are combat-trained and only two are large and aggressive enough to be considered ‘guard’ dogs. Too few cameras, and the remaining functional locks on all the doors are outdated. The windows don’t even _have_ locks. Or bars. 

Natasha goes in through the garbage room, out of habit. The lock on the door in the basement is broken, and the stairs to the mailroom and apartments are unmonitored. Unless she includes the solitary video camera above the superintendent’s apartment, which she does not. There is a blind spot along the wall where the poorly-hung lights cast anyone walking more than two feet away in complete shadow. 

She leaves her bag by the front entrance. Sharon isn’t home when she arrives. It is late at night, but the damage caused by the helicarriers is probably a considerable inconvenience. Natasha scans every room, thought she doesn’t step inside the bedroom, out of respect, on the off chance Sharon was smart enough to install a camera there. She hears Agent 13 when she exits the elevator. Her footsteps are even and familiar, and Natasha recognizes the quiet pattering sound of one of Sharon’s more sensible pairs of shoes. She waits in the well-lit kitchen, in an attempt to keep the Agent from startling.

She doesn’t succeed.

“Nat!”

She stands, because it’s supposedly courteous.

“You’ll never guess who I just spoke to.”

Sharon takes her hand off her gun.

“Was it someone who appreciates coming home to a break-in?”

Sharon places her purse on the table beside the door.

“I did you a favor." Sharon ignores her as she passes her, crossing through the apartment. "I’ve identified four new weak spots in your apartment’s security,” Natasha finishes. She leans against the wall while Sharon fiddles with the faucet.

“I almost shot you.”

Natasha slips off the wall, sliding her hand over Sharon’s waist.

“I would have dodged. I can be very flexible.”

Sharon’s shoulders bend forward. 

“What do you want, Natasha?”

She leans closer while Sharon rinses a glass.

“To talk.”

Sharon places the glass down in the sink. Letting it fill up with water.

"Take a step back please."

She obeys, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

Sharon reaches into the sink, taking a long sip from the overflowing glass. “Tell me what you came here to say.”

Natasha isn’t sure what to make of Sharon’s expression. Tired, possibly angry-

“The Winter Soldier contacted me.”

Shock is easy to register as Sharon’s eyes go wide.

“He’s still _alive_? And he _contacted_ you? Was he under orders?”

Natasha bites the side of her lip.

“Don’t know for sure. There were definitely a few things he couldn’t tell me.”

Sharon puts her glass down on the counter after an aborted second sip.

“What did he want?”

“My help. Or so he said.”

Sharon nods, staring at her empty hand. She’s easier to observe when she’s not paying attention. 

“Have you told Hill? Or…  Rogers? I know he’s injured, but-”

“I didn’t want to bring it to his attention until after we had the Soldier in custody.”

“Custody, _how-_ ” Sharon shakes her head. “How do you think _we’re_ going to pull that off? S.H.I.E.L.D. is done.”

“There are resources-”

“Why me?” Sharon cuts her off, demanding: “A real answer, please.”

Natasha considers the most optimal response, and the bait necessary to elicit it. 

“Because I can trust you.”

Sharon begins to pace.

“Huh. You’re sure about that?”

“Your priority has always been public safety. Whatever your personal feelings are, you’ll want to do whatever it takes to secure the Winter Soldier.”

Sharon leans against the counter.

“And do what with him?”

“Extract information.” Natasha’s trigger fingers twitch. “Obviously.”

Sharon squints at her.

“Extract it _how_?”

Natasha shrugs.

“That’s why I came to you first, instead of Hill, or Stark.”

Sharon drums her fingers against the countertop. Natasha counts the beats, one, two, three-

“You’ll need to contact one of them anyway. Probably both of them. If I help you, _if_ ,” she glares with the emphasis, “it’s not like we can keep him locked up in my guest bedroom.”

Natasha blinks. Sharon groans.

“That’s exactly what you were planning, weren’t you?”

“I could secure the room.” She shrugs. “Given enough time and a steady supply of inhibitors, he could be detained here indefinitely until he could be either deprogrammed or eliminated-”

“Natasha, I am not keeping a dangerous super soldier drugged in my apartment.”

She’s not surprised by this. The apartment has the benefit of consistent monitoring, with Sharon living there.

But there are other options. A warehouse near the Navy Yard, empty for the season.

“Did you hear me?”

Natasha nods. There’s the rural farmhouse in Garrett County. 

“Nat, the timing of this is really suspicious-" 

Or an abandoned church in Annapolis. 

"-he might just be trying to trick you.”

Spread a few rumors insinuating the building is haunted-

“Are you listening?”

“I’m multi-tasking.”

… Accompanied by some prominent rodenticide warnings, and word of mouth should steer all but the worst of the teenage population away. And these are viable even if Tony Stark refuses to help. 

“Natasha, look at me?”

Which is a distinct possibility. Since, according to the Hydra file, the Winter Soldier was responsible for the assassinations of Howard and Maria Stark. 

Sharon is waiting for Natasha to look at her. 

She does.

“Is this really a good idea?”

She’s looking, but Natasha doesn’t see the point of this discussion.

“It’s necessary.”

“I, _we_ both just found out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was being run by Hydra. The project that was supposed to protect us just crashed into the Potomac. I’m exhausted, you were injured…” She shakes her head, rough gold curls coiling around her shoulders. “This doesn’t seem like a good idea.” She sighs. “This isn’t your job anymore.”

Natasha nods.

“All right.”

Sharon takes a step backwards; she bumps into the edge of the counter.

“All right?”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it.”

Natasha shifts, aiming her body at the door.

“Wait.”

Natasha stops.

“You’re not going after him alone, right?”

Natasha dons one of her more charming smiles.

“Of course not.”

“You’ll talk to Stark? Or someone? I know May owed you a few favors before she retired...”

Natasha shrugs.

“I’ll figure something out. I’ve been told I’m very resourceful.” She steps back into the kitchen, resting her palm against Sharon's hip. Sharon closes her eyes, and her mouth curls into an indecipherable shape.

"Nat-"

"Yes," her voice rumbles.

Sharon opens her eyes.

"Natasha." She grabs Natasha's wrist with impressive speed.

Natasha yanks her forward, using Sharon's grip against her. After one fatal second of hesitation, Sharon reacts. She counters, ducking low, swiping Natasha's legs out from under her. Prepared, Natasha jumps, spinning, blocking Sharon's punch with her bicep. She catches Sharon's next swing, and Sharon's other hand lands on her wrist. Natasha swoops low, maneuvering around Sharon by twisting her arm up behind her back. It leaves Sharon at an awkward angle, neck and chest exposed. She struggles, making an unhappy sound. It's not a draw, but Sharon's getting better. Natasha releases her, stepping backwards.

"Did that hurt?" Natasha finds herself whispering.

"It's all right." Sharon massages her shoulder. "That wasn't-"

“Watch your footwork when you swing from the left, your center of gravity should be lower, it gives you an advantage over larger-”

“Natasha, your hand-”

She pulls her wrist out of Sharon’s line of sight.

“I’m fine.” She winks. “This job is hell on my manicure.”

Sharon presses her index and middle fingers against her temple, closing her eyes while she decides what to say next. 

“I didn't mean to- I wasn't trying to restrain you.”

Natasha takes a breath. “But I’m fine.”

Sharon grimaces.

“You didn’t say the Winter Soldier attacked you.”

“I said he contacted me. The rest was a given.”

Sharon groans, deep in the back of her throat, almost like a growl.

“Go clean up. Please.”

It’s one of the few things Sharon is frequently adamant about. It doesn’t seem necessary to clean up a couple of bruises, but Natasha goes anyway. It will give Sharon time to let her emotions dissipate. 

Sharon’s bathroom is cosy. It’s the same design as the other bathrooms in the building, exact same fittings and tiles, but Sharon has added enough details to make it feel like it’s something other than a duplicate. The bathmat and shower curtain match, and Natasha knows they get rotated out at the same time, at the first sign of mildew or mold. There’s a potted plant by the window: a peace lily. Easy to care for, thrives in low light environments. An excellent choice. 

Natasha rinses her face in the sink, running her fingers through the matted hair above her ear. Checking for evidence to remove. There’s a little blood there, but she doesn’t think any of it is hers. She’s glad Sharon didn’t notice. There’s blood on her wrist, too, and she’s sure none of it belongs to her. The sample is probably contaminated, but she collects it anyway, storing it in her breast pocket before she cleans her forearm. It’s sore, and the joints pop when she flexes, but it can’t be worse than a sprain. Should heal in under twelve hours, even if she doesn’t rest it. 

The shoulder can wait. Sharon won't see it. 

The last time she was in this bathroom, the sun was shining through the slender, frosted window, and she and Sharon were intimate. Natasha still remembers the imprint of the experience on her body, the warm water and the cool air and Sharon’s strong, soft hands exploring between her thighs. When Sharon got dressed, it was in the pink nurse uniform, and Natasha briefed her on Steve Rogers, the new things she’d learned about him. There were few significant details, but she felt it was worth mentioning that he is a man prone to risks, that he was angry with her when she prioritized her mission over saving the lives of the hostages. 

She had revealed too much exasperation to Sharon, who had told her she should be glad that she was on a team with someone that would save her life. It was difficult to explain to Sharon that it was irrelevant, that she was trained so she would never need someone to save her. That it was the entire point of her specialty. Sharon kept arguing hypotheticals that would never materialize: what if someone was stronger, or smarter, or faster, or more prepared? What if she was outnumbered? Natasha could think of many examples when she had faced these odds, and survived, but Sharon still didn’t understand? Finally, Sharon had grabbed her hand, and asked her:

“If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?”

Sharon had asked her to be honest. She had said no. It was not optimal, but also not very surprising when Sharon informed her it was the end of the sexual component of their relationship. Because Sharon had asked for truth, Natasha has to assume this is the outcome she wanted. The stipulation that they remain friends is confusing. 

The towels hanging on the wall are pink and blue, and soft, fresh from the laundry. She can smell the detergent in the fibers when she dries off. When she hangs it back up, she takes .6 seconds longer than the task requires because she is trying to get it to hang the way it was when she found it. An unnecessary gesture. If anyone cared to look they would find her DNA all over the absorbent, blue fibers. She’s left traces of herself all over the apartment. And Sharon would corroborate her presence here. She ends up placing it beside the pink towels. The color scheme is reminiscent of the boy-girl assignments in the prenatal unit. The information is irrelevant, and it’s unsettling that she remembers it now. She ignores it. 

Sharon is waiting for her on the other side of the door.

“Are you all right?”

“This isn’t my first rodeo.”

Sharon bites back a groan.

“That’s not what I- I mean _you_.”

Natasha isn’t sure what she’s angling for.

“Injuries like this heal.”

Sharon touches her wrist, not pulling.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone. Pierce is dead. It’s not bothering you?”

Natasha looks form Sharon’s hand to Sharon’s face. 

“Should it?”

“Nat, all your secrets are out-”

Natasha backs away, out of her grasp.

“Not all of them.”

“Enough of them.” Sharon stands her ground. “Which is why-”

“If you read something that bothered you, just say it.”

Sharon doesn’t look angry, but she’s been trained by some of the best.

“I didn’t read them.”

“Why?” If their roles had been reversed, Natasha would have read everything. That’s just due diligence. 

“If there was something in those documents you wanted me to know… I was waiting for you to tell me-”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

Sharon grits her teeth.

“I never said you did.”

“You knew what I was.” Natasha finds herself counting exits in an apartment she knows intimately. 

“Nat that’s not- we’re having two different arguments right now.”

“I’m not angry.” She ignores the tight, anxious feeling inside her chest. “I understand.”

Sharon looks deflated.

“I don’t think you do.”

Natasha passes her, gathering her things.

“No, you said it was over. I shouldn’t have come back. I shouldn’t have asked you for anything.”

She feels Sharon’s hand on her shoulder and freezes. She’s been conditioned to attack when someone grabs her from behind, but it’s extremely unlikely that Sharon would attack her. The odds of her success in a one-on-one fight are not good. 

“Natasha. I also said we could still be friends. You’re always welcome here.”

Natasha nods, then breaks out of Sharon’s grasp.

“Thanks, Sharon. I’ll be fine.”

She leaves the way she came. 

* * *

She does a perimeter check around the apartment complex, spanning six blocks, before she returns. There is no one trailing her. 

The lights in the kitchen are on, there is shattered glass and blood on the floor. She doesn’t disturb it. The air is cool, streaming in through the broken windows. She reserves one moment to be impressed at the Soldier's skill; he took his shot at Fury through the wall, must have used Rogers to place him. She checks the apartment for surveillance equipment, ignoring her own devices. There are some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s, which she deactivates. It’s doubtful anyone is listening, since Steve won’t be returning to the building for at least one more day. In the wake of Alexander Pierce’s spectacular betrayal, there isn’t enough manpower to go around monitoring empty apartments. 

She places a tripwire near the front door, attached to a grenade pin. It’s not elegant, but it will be an inconvenience for approximately thirty seconds, which is twenty more than she needs. 

The bedroom alone is neat. Not a trace of dust. The closet door is open, revealing a neat array of jackets, crisp khakis hung to the far left, and a solid mass of collared, navy shirts, punctuated by the occasional white-and-navy plaid. 

The bed is made, with tight corners folded over and tucked firmly beneath the mattress. The pillows look soft. The white sheets lie in crisp lines beneath them. 

Setting down her bag, she sits on the floor beside the bed, in the corner across from the door. Not visible from the window, but there are excellent acoustics coming from the street. There’s a gun in the bedside table, and her own weapons are easily accessible from this position. There’s no fire escape in this room. The egress routes are limited, but she will have plenty of time to get to one if anyone tries to enter. 

A quick sweep of the room should clear it. Removing the impression of her footsteps from the carpet will be the most difficult part. Most of the surfaces are so light that one of her dark hairs will show immediately. Steve will never know she was here. 

She plugs her phone in beside her, and closes her eyes. 


	3. Articulatio

Four hours later, she opens her eyes. 

Her vision adjusts to the predawn gloom without fanfare. Garbage is being collected three blocks west. No recycling. Someone in the apartment above her is using the stovetop. She counts her weapons. Everything is where she left it. 

After checking the perimeter, she lies down on the floor, going through the routine of core exercises drilled into her muscles. It feels right, waking up like this, her body moving in the same choreographed patterns it knows deep down. Bend, release, breath. Repeat. Again. Natasha moves until her stomach aches. It’s a comforting sensation. 

She checks the time. It will be early evening in Pakistan. 

She dials a number she memorized months ago. They connect on the second ring.

“Who is this?”

“Maria.” She can hear Hill’s apartment in the background, early morning Manhattan traffic, one siren, she’s alone. “Go outside for a cigarette.”

“I wasn’t awake, you know.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything. Hill grumbles, but there’s shuffling, and then a click. Balcony door. And there’s a light wind, good.

“I quit years ago.”

“Then why do you still have a pack and a lighter in your dresser?”

The lighter snaps.

“What is it?”

“Who do you trust?”

Agent Hill inhales.

“What do you need?”

“Medical, someone with a psych background. And enough tranquilizers to take down a racehorse.”

Hill clicks her teeth together; usually this means she’s unhappy.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you have anyone?”

Hill is quiet while she smokes. 

“I might.”

“How far are they from Philadelphia?” She can pick the asset up and explain en route. 

“I’ll tell you if you tell me who you’re going after.”

“Another fossil.”

Hill sits down; the chair legs scrape the balcony floor. 

“Will you tell the Ca-”

“Not until it’s necessary.”

Hill sighs.

“You’ll need someone else. If you’re the one on the ground, you need somebody watching your back. An extraction team would be better-”

“I’ll talk to Agent Carter.” They don’t know each other well, unlikely Hill will connect the dots. “She’s a good spotter. I trust her to take care of anyone on the target’s tail.”

Agent Hill hums in thought. 

“Did you have a safe house in mind? I can talk to Stark, move some resources around-”

“Not yet. I want him under the radar. Until the waters settle.”

“Since Hydra will want to recapture him right away.” Hill’s clever. And easier to talk to. Her responses are predictable, logistical. Efficient. 

“Give me a few hours. I’ll have an answer for you by this afternoon.”

That won’t give them much time, but it’s all right. Natasha can drive all night if she has to. 

“I’ll call you at 13:15. Send your asset to Laurel Hill Cemetery. I’ll contact when they’re en route with exact coordinates.”

She doesn’t say goodbye when she hangs up. 

Time to move. 

* * *

The hospital isn’t busy when she arrives. Very few accidents happen at such an early hour. Natasha knows that once rush hour hits, emergency services will be more exciting. She would have more opportunities to visit undetected during a high-volume hour, but she doesn’t need to be undetected this time. She walks through the front doors without hiding her face from the security cameras at her three o’clock and eight o’clock, and she smiles at the security guard like she’s seen other people do. He doesn’t respond. 

First, she purchases three bottles of water, two almond-flavored chocolate candy bars, and two bags of peanuts from the vending machines. She downs two of the water bottles and one of the candy bars, saving the rest in her rucksack. Then she heads up to the third floor, where Rogers will be recuperating. 

The guards posted at the door recognize her. She shows them her S.H.I.E.L.D. badge anyway, even though it no longer confers authority. It is the only identification she has that is not a complete fabrication. 

Rogers is asleep, and she does not intend to wake him. He is alone, which is good. She knows Wilson won’t be far, so she plants her listening device behind the battery in Rogers' cellular phone first. 

She tests it, humming low while she listens to her earbuds. The sound is clear, and the range will be wide enough for her purposes. She puts the equipment away, checking the chart at the foot of the bed, and takes a seat as she flips through the pages. The prognosis is good. Minor surgery to repair the internal bleeding caused by multiple gunshot wounds. The surgical team had to work fast, because the super soldier metabolism kept processing the anesthetic faster than a normal human. 

She hears Wilson as he walks down the hall. She has enough time to slip out of the window unnoticed if she needs to, but she decides against it. The three-story drop would be inconvenient, and not worth the trouble. There is a specific rhythm in the way Wilson walks, leftover from his military service. He is comfortable in his body, like most well-trained soldiers, but his stride is softer now that he’s been discharged. It is probably a calculated tactic to put both civilians and traumatized veterans at ease around him. He has a polite greeting for the guards at the door, and he is unsurprised when he sees her sitting beside the bed. 

“Hey friend," he grins at her. Warm. Affectionate. 

Natasha musters a smile for Wilson, not budging from her seat beside Rogers. 

“Friend? That sounds like high praise.”

Wilson shrugs, leaning against the wall.

“Well. We did just save the world together. I feel like that qualifies us for lifetime friendship.”

She laughs through the roof of her mouth, lips closed. 

“Sounds good to me.” And then, because she understands it is necessary, she asks: “How’s he doing?”

“Sleeps like the dead. Which, considering what happened, I’m pretty impressed he’s _not_ dead.”

Natasha nods, categorizing the injuries Rogers sustained.

“How are you doing?” Wilson is still conversing.  

Bruising and cuts on Rogers' cheeks, mostly healed. Obviously the Soldier punched him in the face, repeatedly.

“Never better,” she mutters. 

Breathing is still disrupted, three broken ribs, due to a fall, probably hit the water too fast, was unconscious and couldn’t brace against the impact-

“Because it kind of seems like, with S.H.I.E.L.D. down for the count, you might have to, I dunno, readjust? Find another employer?”

…abdominal and shoulder wounds most likely sore, but healing, as the chart indicated, and something in the tone of Wilson’s voice is similar to Sharon’s when she voices concerns. She glances at him.

“I’m sure I’ll work something out.”

He puts his hands up.

“Hey. I don’t mean to pry. I just… if you need any help, if there’s anything I can do-”

She smirks. “I know where you live.”

He responds with a wry grin. Optimal response.

“Right. Don’t be afraid to come knocking.”

She nods, then gets up. 

“Thanks Wilson.”

“Don’t mention it. And hey-”

She pauses in the doorway.

“Call me Sam.”

She nods.

“Gotcha.”

The takes a detour through the Palliative Care Unit, finding a patient that has been comatose for three days. There are routine checks every forty-five minutes, and she waits until the nurse on call performs one before entering the room. Natasha confirms the diagnosis. The patient is indeed comatose. Good. (Well, not _good_ , but it is convenient). 

Natasha slips into the bathroom and shuts the door. She turns the shower on, and removes her clothes while she waits for it to heat up, hanging them on the back of the door. She peels away the bandage on her shoulder. There is residual pus and blood on the injury, but the window for life-threatening infection has passed. She deposits the soiled gauze in the bio-hazardous waste basket, and doesn't replace it. When she checks, she finds the water pressure is decent, and the temperature is acceptable. She tastes it first, but there’s only a light mineral flavor, nothing unusual for DC water. She reaches over the sink to take a few pumps of the hand soap, which she uses to rinse her hair first. It’s gold and a little sticky, but it lathers enough and she’s able to rinse away the last traces of blood. Then she moves on to her underarms, buttocks, and feet. The lemon scent of the soap doesn’t overpower the smell of glycerine, but it’s inoffensive, and both should fade after a few hours. 

Sam is a good asset, she muses. It is likely that he will continue to ally himself with Rogers. His wings were damaged in the fight on the Potomac, but the design can be duplicated. If she can recover the schematics, she can send them to Stark. He will most likely try to improve them, add a few more weapons to the arsenal. That would be useful. She will make the suggestion to Hill when she calls. 

_Friend_ , Natasha supposes that the assumption is accurate. Friends keep each other from hurting. She bites down on the edge of her tongue, filling her mouth with the taste of blood. Fifteen years and eleven months ago, she stood with her back against a wall in a crumbling part of Budapest, and accepted the fact that she was going to die. Right lung punctured, wrist broken, weapons out of reach. The gun was pressed to her forehead, she didn't need to see to know it was a perfect shot. No point in trying to disarm him, he would get the shot before she moved. No way to escape in time. She'd been given bad information, told that he'd hold back against her, that in this final, crucial moment, he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. Her jaw had been dislocated in the struggle, and blood was leaking through her bared teeth. Natasha could feel how wrong the information had been. The blood had tasted bitter. She refused to choke on it. And Barton had stared at her, so still, for the first time in their encounter. She had been moving too fast for him to see, and when he finally could, she had hated the way he looked at her. Like some helpless thing. She had not closed her eyes. 

In the shower, she does. Just for a second. Natasha turns off the water, drying her hair with her discarded shirt. The rest of her air-dries well enough, and she dresses in the clothing recovered from the gym, double-checking every item for monitoring equipment as she does. All clear. A once-over in the mirror determines her appearance will not warrant any unwanted attention. She has work to do, and an extra stop to make on the way to Philadelphia. 

She pulls out her phone, and makes a few calculations. 

* * *

There are plenty of S.H.I.E.L.D. cars that she can borrow. All registered under false names, and nobody will be looking for them. She picks the most innocuous option, fills the tank, and takes a few extra gallons, storing them in the trunk. 

She drives. She parks the car off the side of a low-volume stretch of highway, and walks to the nearest rest stop. Right on schedule. There's a bus headed back to DC making a pit stop. She waits while the driver parks, counting the passengers. Only sixteen. She walks, taking advantage of the driver's inattention as he struggles with a lighter. It's windy. He walks around to the other side of the bus to get better coverage, and she steps inside. She takes a seat in the back, close to the bathroom. She expects the potential for off-putting odors is the reason that section of the bus is sparsely populated. Natasha thinks the entire bus smells unpleasant. Fuel and sweat and plastic and confined human bodies, all of it puts her on edge. She counts the passengers as they return. The driver doesn't. 

She entertains herself by watching cars as they pass. She has a long walk ahead of her when she gets back to DC. 

 


	4. Coordination

Natasha counts the number of operatives surveilling Monica Chang. 

There are seventeen. Four of them are Hydra. Two are United States military. There is a team of six reporting to Chinese intelligence, but they are minimally armed, and it’s clear they’re about to pack up. Four more are private security. And there is one agent with leftover allegiance to S.H.I.E.L.D. following her around like a lost puppy. Nick Fury’s ex-wife does not seem to care about any of them. And the back seat of her car is clean and comfortable. Easy to hide in, too. Natasha conceals herself until Chang sits down behind the wheel. 

Chang flinches when Natasha presses the barrel of a gun to her temple. 

“Hey friend.”

Chang grinds her teeth. It is a painful habit.

“How long have you been hiding in my car?”

“Two hours and thirty-six minutes.”

She grimaces.

“Everyone out there is getting fired.”

Natasha smiles in the rearview mirror.

“Like you need them.”

Chang glares.

“My son is staying with me.”

Natasha isn’t sure what to say to that, children are a notoriously thorny subject, so she waits.

“Did you disable all the recording equipment?”

Standard protocol. Natasha nods, handing her the mangled remains of the recording devices that had been planted in the car when she arrived. Monica tosses it all into the passenger seat without examining it. 

“I don’t know where he went. Nick and I aren’t speaking.”

Natasha quirks her brow, a gesture she’s picked up from Rogers.

“Nick Fury is dead. He’s not talking to anyone.”

“Knock it off. I know he’s fine.”

Natasha waits. People are generally uncomfortable with silence.

“ _Can_ I help you, Romanoff?”

Natasha hands her the receiver for the device she’d planted in Rogers’ phone earlier. 

“Someone needs to be on watch duty for Captain America.”

Chang looks at the receiver.

“And you think that’s my job now?”

“It would be temporary. Just until he’s fully recovered.”

Chang takes a deep breath, releasing it with a hiss.

“Should I bother asking what you’ll be up to?”

Natasha shrugs.

“Seems silly.”

She groans, fingers tight around the steering wheel.

“And you’ll call it even?”

Natasha nods; Chang watches it through the rearview mirror. 

“Fine. I’ll start tailing him when he gets discharged.” Her lips curl. “Think you could recommend a decent babysitter? My last one defected to the fucking Nazi science division.”

Natasha smiles in a way she has been told is charming.

“You could always bring him with you. Get him started in the family business.”

Monica leans back in her seat.

“Are you joking, or do you genuinely have no idea how old my son is?”

Natasha calculates; Monica Chang gave birth five years, six months, and thirteen days ago. She doesn't understand her misstep. 

“Never mind just- do you want me to drop you off? Or drive past somewhere and let you roll out?”

“Gas station in Columbia, off the Broken Land Parkway. I’ll direct you.”

Chang starts the engine, leaning over the back seats without looking at Natasha as she backs out.

“Will we be taking the scenic route?”

Natasha smirks.

“You’re craving coffee and and egg-white sandwich.”

Chang’s expression tightens.

“Of course I am.”

Natasha waits until they’ve cleared the parking lot, then swipes Chang’s laptop.

* * *

 

The drive-thru line is long, which gives Natasha time to search through the files she’s just released. Erasing her trail would just send up red flags where she doesn’t need them; fortunately, the American public loves a scandal, and millions of people are sifting through the information. Trying to hone in on Natasha’s search, made on a computer she’s never used via a public network (which is running slow because there are four other people using the same network and accessing the same file sources concurrently) would be more difficult than any euphemism can illustrate. 

There is nothing associated with the name Operation: Orphan. No projects, past or present, and many of the files are extremely old. Hydra must have been digitizing their catalogue. How efficient of them. Perhaps they hadn't reached the entirety of the Winter Soldier program. Those files would be about seventy years old. And dense. 

She continues to search while Monica orders, downloading any relevant-looking documents. References to an article published a few hours ago keeps popping up; an orphanage in Afghanistan that was burned to the ground in the late nineties, but she closes the tab. By the time they pull out onto the highway, she has discarded almost all of them as insignificant. Those she deems worth saving are encrypted. She thinks she might be able to break the code, but the original documents are in a language she doesn't know (Japanese, she makes an educated assumption based on the encryption type) so there's not much she can do in the field. She transfers the documents to her phone and sends them to a contact in The Rising Tide, using the alias Skye created for her (a concerned citizen with access to sensitive materials but clueless about their significance). The resurgence after the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. might yield some results. 

“Doing anything that’s going to put me on a watch list somewhere?”

Natasha begins deleting files. 

“If you’re not already on them I will be very impressed.”

Chang frowns.

"Just tell me where I'm going."

Natasha recites the directions she'd memorized while she drove. Her body is tired, but she ignores it. There will be time for that later. They pull into the gas station, and Chang glances at her through the rearview mirror. 

"Fill your tank. I'll pay."

Chang gets out, shrugging.

"Fine by me."

Natasha goes inside the gas station, grabbing a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of orange juice. She stalls for a few moments, pretending to browse the magazine selections. There are articles on the front page of every daily periodical regarding the senate hearing, but her face is absent from the front pages. Chang waves at her from the car when the tank is full. She pays in cash, staring down at the counter. She can see the reflection of the cashier, he's leering, but it's because he doesn't know how to react to anyone female, and not because he recognizes her (assessment: did not bother to read the news today, annoying, but not life-threatening). She will have to monitor her public image. This is not something she has considered before. 

Annoyed is not a strong enough word for how she feels about that. 

She crumbles the receipt and tosses it in the garbage outside. She walks around to the driver's side window, waiting until Chang rolls it down. 

"Rogers is staying at-"

"I've got it." Chang snorts. "I'm retired. Not dead."

"Sam Wilson has been checking on him. He's got combat experience, and he's definitely not Hydra."

Chang accepts the information, though Natasha is sure she's going to look into Sam's history with a thorough eye. It's the kind of thing you have to do for yourself. It will be a waste of time, but Natasha chose Chang because she doesn't follow blindly. The time spent is an acceptable loss. 

Sam would probably be bothered by the invasion of privacy, if he found out, but Natasha intends to use a selective amount of honesty with him. 

"I'll be ready with an update when I get back to DC. You know which number to call." She scans Natasha. "Unless you're going somewhere that doesn't 'do' phones."

Natasha shrugs, giving nothing away. 

"You'll watch him."

Chang nods.

"I keep my word. You'll stay alive."

Natasha contorts her face into a cocky grin.

"I'll do my best."

Chang sighs, rolls up the window, and drives off. 

* * *

The walk from the gas station to the car is not ideal. It's difficult to look inconspicuous, walking along the side of the highway, so she has to step through the overgrown flora on the side of the road. It crunches underneath her boots, and she winces, even though the sound of wind displaced by the speeding cars a few feet away masks the sound. 

She has three mobile phones stored in the glove box, and she picks one she hasn't used before. Natasha opens up the back of the phone, replacing the battery with one of her own; it will scramble the signal and place the call as originating from a tower in northern California. Wine country. She replaces the cover and waits for the phone to reboot. She places a test call to one of her servers. Four seconds after she hangs up, she receives a text message indicating the cell tower the call can be traced back to. Satisfied, she steps out of the car and opens the front hood, staring at the engine like a befuddled driver with car troubles. The performance should be sufficient for the approximately zero people noticing her as they drive past. 

Hill picks up on the fourth ring.

"I'm outside already."

As if she couldn't hear. "Excellent." Natasha leans inside the hood of the car. She's already checked it for surveillance equipment, but she repeats the routine. 

"Skip the pleasantries?"

"It's the polite thing to do. Who do you have for me?"

She can hear Hill grinning. 

"Jemma Simmons. She's been with Agent May's team."

Natasha runs her fingers underneath the battery.

"Loyalty?"

"She comes recommended by the best."

That would be Agent Coulson. 

"Doesn't get much better than that."

Hill hums in agreement. 

"And she has the skills I requested?"

"I'll send you her file."

Unnecessary, any S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel files will have been part of the leak, but Natasha thinks this is probably a gesture of goodwill. 

"She might need your help with something too. Our friend mentioned the possibility of an alternate career path for her."

Undercover, someone loyal to Coulson but working within Hydra. It's necessary. 

"She's already on her way?"

It's the kind of task Natasha used to be excellent for, before she publicly and decisively shared the collective secrets of the world's largest spy agency and that same agency's rivals with the entire planet. 

Maria makes an affirmative noise. "She's about three hours away. On the Amtrak."

Coulson will want Natasha to set this Agent up. It seems like a fair trade, for services rendered. 

"Not a problem. Tell Agent Simmons to go to the ATM closest to the southeast corner of the cemetery. Use a prepaid card, bought with cash. You know the kind?" She listens for Hill's nod. "She is going to check her account balance, take a receipt, and then wait on the corner."

She can hear Hill frowning. 

"Is this really necessary?"

Natasha leans back, closing the hood of the car.

"Yes."

"Usually you're less..." Hill sighs. "I'd say paranoid, but given the circumstances-"

"Exactly."

Hill exhales.

"Fine. Southeast corner, account balance at the nearest ATM, wait at the corner with the receipt. Anything else?"

"Switch Tony Stark's coffee to decaf for me?"

"Goodbye Agent."

Natasha can hear her chuckling just before she hangs up. 

 


	5. Countenance

Agent Jemma Simmons arrives on time. Her photo matches the file Natasha has memorized. She had a small carry-on bag with her, rolling smoothly along the sidewalk, but judging from the bulk of her purse, Natasha assumes that all of the essentials are in there. Smart. Simmons is petite, and her physical reflexes aren't well-trained, not uncommon in her division. It shouldn't be an issue. Her credentials are impressive, and Natasha thinks that Dr. Banner might like to be introduced to her. Simmons has done a lot of work with sedatives that proved effective against Centipede subjects. Natasha doesn't understand all of it, but she thinks there might be other applicable uses. It's the kind of thing Dr. Banner would appreciate. 

Natasha, parked across the street, watches as Simmons arrives at the ATM. She follows the instructions accurately, and makes a valiant effort to keep herself from fidgeting too much. Natasha can tell she’s nervous, but Natasha has been training for several years, and she is more sensitive to minor changes in demeanor and emotional state than the average person. Agent Simmons will do just fine. 

With a little extra instruction.

The Romanoff crash course in opaque facial expressions, the art of espionage, and aloof detachment from a variety of violent acts. Natasha finds herself smiling at her private joke.

Agent Simmons walks towards the cemetery, and Natasha waits six minutes before turning on the car’s engine and following. Traffic is congested for the first block, but Natasha passes Simmons soon enough, and is parked and waiting by the time the Agent arrives. She steps out of the car and stands in her path, standing at ease. Her features are familiar enough, to former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents as well as the general population. Natasha doesn’t need to do anything else to stand out. 

“Oh.”

Agent Simmons stops short. Natasha nods towards the car.

“Get in loser, we're going shopping.”

Simmons doesn't laugh. Her pupils are wide. Natasha tries an appeasing smile.

"It's from a movie. You know-"

Agent Simmons jerks. "Oh! Of course. Sorry. I. Well. I wasn't sure what to expect I suppose."

Natasha smirks, nodding at the car.

"We can talk about it on the way."

Simmons nods, loading her bags into the back seat before joining Natasha up front. They ride in silence for exactly fourteen minutes and thirty-six seconds, enough time to reach the highway, and Natasha lets the Agent stew for all of them.

Simmons restrains herself from asking the anxious questions that are obviously piling up. Interesting tactic. 

“You weren’t expecting me.”

Simmons glances at her.

“Agent Hill didn’t tell me anything.”

Natasha nods.

“Why did you come, then?”

Her lips twitch.

“Pardon?”

“You’ve just discovered that the agency you work for, and everything it stands for, has been corrupted by an insidious rival. Yet you chose to trust Maria Hill, who gave you next to no information about your next mission. Why?”

Simmons swallows.

“Is this a test?”

Natasha smirks.

“Glad you caught on.”

Simmons considers her next response.

“Well. It’s not Agent Hill I trust. I mean, I admire her, but I don’t know her. But Agent-” she stops herself.

“I have clearance. Don’t worry. I know Coulson is alive.”

A little bit Simmons’ tension slips away.

“Ah. Yes. Well, you know him. He told me I was needed, he relayed the message. I knew, wherever I was going, whatever I was doing, he’s got my back.”

Voice is conveying emotion, but her tone is even, she’s not perspiring in excess, no nervous tics or twitches. Natasha will have to monitor the woman’s tells, establish a clearer baseline, but for now she can accept this information as the truth. 

“Good.”

Simmons smiles.

“Good.”

The next silence is more companionable. Simmons relaxes into her seat, eye tracking the scenery as they drive. Natasha pulls into the far left lane, monitoring speed, other drivers, the rain clouds up ahead. 

"You should know before we discuss any more that the work I'm asking you to do is not under the purview of any official agency. We have no authority. You can never reveal what you've done, to anyone. It will not only compromise the integrity of the mission, it will jeopardize your safety." Simmons is staring at her, breath baited. "Is this acceptable to you?"

Agent Simmons takes a second to consider before nodding. 

"You were with Captain Rogers." Her jaw is firm. "You're doing what needs to be done, Agent Romanoff. That's all I need to know."

Cultivating a friendship with Captain America sure has its perks.  

“We’re running a personnel retrieval mission. After it’s complete, I’ve been instructed to set you up with a deep cover mission inside Hydra.”

Simmons gulps, but she doesn’t argue. Admirable.

“I have a few ideas. Your file says you have an interest in biological warfare. That’s an angle we can use. There’s no point in hiding your work history. It’s more advantageous to use it, establish a record of employment, and set you up as a defector. It’ll cut down on the number of lies you’ll need to tell.”

Simmons sighs with relief; she’s listening, but when Natasha glances at the passenger side window she notices that Simmons is also toying with a mobile phone.

“Knock it off.”

She jumps.

“It’s disconnected-”

“Doesn’t matter. If it’s S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue, there’s still monitoring equipment installed.”

Simmons stares down at her phone like it’s betrayed her.

“They didn’t say anything about-”

“Alexander Pierce initiated the protocol a few months ago.” She rolls her eyes. “He probably wanted to make sure nobody slipped through the crosshairs of Project Insight. He didn’t make an announcement, so nobody noticed.”

She’s still rubbing the dormant screen with her fingers.

“What should I do with it?”

Natasha scans the horizon. The next rest stop is newer; too many lights and cameras in the parking lot. She keeps driving.

“When we’re someplace safe, I’ll dispose of it for you. Or,” she shrugs, “I can tell you how to do it properly. Call it lesson number one.”

Simmons nods.

“All right.” She begins to ask something, stops herself, then asks anyway. “Are you… how did you know, about the phones?”

Natasha raises her right eyebrow, because Simmons can’t see her left.

“Because I checked. That’ll be lesson number two. Constant vigilance, Agent Simmons.”

“Should I be taking notes- oh! Speaking of…” she rifles through her purse, digging out a pale white envelope. “I have something for you, from Skye. I didn’t read it.” She purses her lips. “Perhaps I should have, if I’m going to be doing this fieldwork stuff-”

“It’s fine.” Natasha cuts her off, taking the note. “You only started thirty minutes ago. Plenty of time to catch up.”

“Right.” She rubs her hands in her lap. “May I say… it’s an honor, truly, to be here. I didn’t, gosh, you must get this all the time-”

“Not really.” Natasha turns and grins, conveying the fact that she has just told a joke. Simmons snickers. Success. 

“Really, it is. Agent Coulson didn’t say, well, anything really. I thought I might be…” she shakes her head. “He asked me if I would be all right going away for a while, not able to contact anyone. I thought it might be something undercover, that’s no surprise. I wish.” She shakes her head. “Never mind.” She smiles, and the slight tremor beneath her bottom lip betrays the fact that it’s a willful one. “I’m excited to learn from you, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha inclines her head.

“Don’t get too excited. I haven’t told you what we’re retrieving yet.”

“Oh yes, what is it? Some Hydra weapon?”

Natasha smirks.

“You could say that.”

There’s a less reputable-looking gas station up ahead. Natasha accelerates; Agent Simmons leans back in her seat.

“Um?”

“Agent Simmons, have you heard of the Winter Soldier?”

She stiffens.

“He was the man on the bridge?”

Natasha nods slowly.

“He’s the one that fought… that Captain Rogers-”

“Yup. He’s got the serum too, or the Hydra version of it. She watches Agent Simmons out of the corner of her eye. “It’s likely he’s been brainwashed. And now, with Hydra out in the open and scrambling to regroup, we have the best opportunity to catch him before they get him back under their control.”

Simmons pales.

“We. You. And me. Just the two of us. Against… against…” She shakes her head. “Us. We are going to capture the Winter Soldier.” She takes a deep breath, exhales with a breathy sigh, her cheeks hollowing. “Oh. Oh my. Oh.”

There's new security equipment installed above the pumps at the station; not an option. She signals to get back into the far left lane. 

“Yes,” Natasha passes a slow-moving oil tanker. “We are. Alive. Preferably.”

"Oh my God, oh my God."

Simmons is clearly not prepared for this kind of operation. Natasha bites back a groan. This is going to be a pain in the ass. 

“Knock it off.” Natasha grimaces. That didn’t work the way she wanted it to. “It's going to be fine." She tries to adopt the tone she'd heard Sam using when he was trying to keep Rogers from doing something stupid, like rescue the Winter Soldier. Which, upon reflection, is approximately what she's trying to accomplish, and perhaps explains why Simmons is electing to panic. Natasha thinks she's done a good job of imitating the calm, rational pace of Sam's voice, but it doesn't seem to be working. 

"Please calm down. I have a plan."

Simmons takes a few elongated breaths, fanning herself. 

"Right. Calm. Yes." She musters a little reserve. "Sorry. It's just, you're a bit legendary. The Battle of New York, Vladivostok... always going in without an extraction plan. It's all a bit... above my clearance level." She nods, her head jerking. "But I'm ready! I'm fine!" She faces Natasha with a feeble smile. "I can do this."

Natasha waits while another wave of panic overtakes, and then passes through Simmons, before delivering the rest of the briefing.

"I'll be doing all the heavy combat."

Some of the tension dissipates form Simmons' shoulders. 

"So you're going to... arrest him, then?" Her jaw is tight. "He seemed quite sturdy on the television footage-"

"I can take him."

Simmons nods, slowly.

"All right." She purses her lips, choosing her words carefully. "So, what is it you need me for?"

Natasha digs into her coat, taking out the sample she'd collected.

"It's not ideal, but I got a sample of his blood. I'm not sure what the off-brand version of the super soldier serum did to the Soldier, but if it's anything like Erskine's, a normal sedative won't work. I need you to build me something that will take him down."

Simmons swallows.

"That's all?"

Natasha nods. It is still necessary to be reassuring. "Easy."

Natasha glances at Simmons, using her reflection in the passenger side window to analyze her responses. Breathing elevated and sporadic, pupils wide, fingers drumming in her lap. Clearly Simmons does not think this will be easy. Natasha considers what she knows about the scientist (young, brilliant, a promising career ahead of her), analyzing the data to figure out what interpersonal skills in her arsenal will be most efficient in calming Simmons. She'll respond favorably to authority, but she will respond better to a commander that she perceives to be amiable. 

"I bet you've got more to fear from Agent May than the Winter Soldier." It is not even, strictly speaking, a lie. The Soldier will be authorized to kill anyone that attacks him or gets in the way of his mark, but as long as Agent Simmons stays out of his line of fire, she should be relatively safe. Because she's not on his kill-list. Natasha considers informing her of this, but decides it would not elicit an optimal response. 

Simmons snickers.

“She _is_ rather formidable.”

It’s what Natasha likes most about her.

“And she’ll tear my head off if I let anything happen to you.” Incorrect, but Agent Simmons recognizes from her cadence the humor Natasha is trying to convey. “And, since I like my head where it is, I’m going to start by teaching you how to get rid of that phone.”

Natasha talks Simmons through the procedure, explaining the reasoning behind her methods, debating the merits of various techniques. The Agent is a quick study, and soon she’s demonstrating her aptitude, explaining why Natasha passes the next rest stop without needing to be prompted.

“Good. Also, try to avoid smartphone-friendly areas. Facial recognition and geotagging are some of the resources used to gather data for Project Insight. Since you can’t move too fast for a clear photo-”

“Because too much speed attracts attention.”

Natasha smiles.

“Right. Which means you have to avoid getting caught on camera entirely.”

The oil tanker is still behind her. Natasha watches it through the rearview.

“So. Where are we stopping then?”

Natasha veers into the right lane, without a signal.

“Gas station up ahead. See? They’re advertising that they carry diesel fuel. It means they’re catering to trucks, not small vehicles.”

Simmons nods, slowly, considering her answer.

“But… it can’t hurt to go in and ask if they have a restroom, right?”

Natasha nods.

“Right.”

She uses her signal this time, giving plenty of warning to the cars behind her. When she pulls into the exit, she decelerates only the barest minimum she needs to in order to stay on the road. The oil truck follows. As Natasha parks, she hands Simmons the phone, and a twenty dollar bill.

“See if they have energy drinks for sale. If not, grab a pack if cigarettes. Act like the brand matters.”

Agent Simmons nods, stepping out of the car. Normally, Natasha would monitor her, check for any mistakes, and provide the necessary encouragement, but it will have to wait. The oil truck pulls in and stops beside one of the pumps, out of view of the highway and the storefront. Predictable tactical position. Natasha waits for Simmons to enter the unimpressive station before she steps out of the car. 

She holds the keys in the palm of her hand, threading the loop between her middle and forefingers. 

The driver of the truck steps out, refueling. He's heavyset, but he's concealing military-grade muscles underneath his dingy sweatshirt and worn denim overalls. His boots are heavy; Natasha assumes there's a knife concealed in each heel. This is not a capture mission. 

It's the passenger that gave it away. Mercenary. Facial scarring suggests a specialty in hand to hand combat. If that hadn't been enough, the weight of the truck was impossible to ignore. She sensed it as she passed; a truck full of fuel would create a stronger wind tunnel, especially at the sixty miles per hour they averaged en route to the rest stop. Their tank is empty. 

"Howdy."

They both smile at her. They have underestimated her. She suspects there is a bounty on her head. These two must have been led to her by some third party. If they're dumb enough to come after her like this, without a bigger team and better equipment, they're not clever enough to have found her on their own. She will have to retrace her footsteps, figure out where they got their lead. 

"So. How much am I worth?"

The mercenary snorts as he steps down from the passenger seat.

"Enough to retire on."

Her lips twists; she's not trying very hard to conceal her smile.

"Retirement always sounded overrated to me."

She chooses the big guy first. He's closer. He's got a fist aimed for her jaw, but she ducks, grabbing his shoulders when she comes up. She swings forward, overbalancing him. He's quick enough to take a step back, bracing himself against the truck door. She catches a glimpse of the mercenary in the passenger side window; he's trying to take aim. Won't take the shot, worried about hitting his accomplice. Stupid mistake. He won't hit _her_ if he never fires at all. Natasha leans backwards, legs around his chest, compressing his lungs as she drags him forwards. As he falls, she grabs his left arm, using her momentum to swing onto his back. She breaks his wrist in three places as she lands. 

The mercenary has a clear shot. She kicks the driver's head into the pavement as she grabs the car door, opening it and deflecting the first shot. Shots. Mercenary's response time is subpar. She jumps into the truck, vaulting herself off of the seat and over the door. She lands on the mercenary's gun arm, crushing his fingers underneath her boot. Before he regains his footing, she slams her forehead into his nose, breaking it and temporarily blinding him. He shouts, choking on his own blood. 

She crouches, grabbing his hand. She picks up the gun in his palm, and shoves it underneath his chin. She fires, and lets his body crumble underneath her. She'll have to burn these clothes later. Another good lesson for Agent Simmons. 

The first man is groaning and spluttering and making a complete ass of himself. Natasha contains a sigh as she walks back over to him. Is it too much to ask that he even attempt to retain a little dignity in defeat? There's an appalling lack of decorum in the average hit man community. Natasha stands above him, kicking him onto his back. He grunts, even though she didn't even kick that hard. His face is scratched and bloody, his shoulder is dislocated, and he's clutching his thrice-broken wrist as it starts to bruise and swell. 

"Now," she puts her hands on her hips. "What's a nice boy like you doing in a crummy place like this?"

He yelps.

"I'm not, I didn't, I was just-"

"Stop whining." By some miracle, he does. "I want to know how you found me, and how many others are looking." He whimpers. She rolls her eyes. "Use your words."

He mumbles an answer, but she gathers the essentials. They were tailing Agent Simmons, saw who she was meeting and decided to try and take them both. Simple enough explanation. Simmons is a valuable asset. It's interesting to note that Natasha Romanoff is wanted dead or alive (at least, in the circles these two suckers were traveling in). It doesn't change her plans at all, but it's good to keep in mind. Perhaps this is one of the downsides of befriending a national icon. 

It can't help that his uniform isn't particularly subtle. 

She hears Agent Simmons returning before she hears the woman's mortified squeak. Natasha turns, shrugging. 

"They weren't using their turn signals consistently. We have about six minutes to clean up and get out. Ready for some hands-on coaching?"

Agent Simmons is a little shaky, but she nods, and it passes. 

Natasha does all the heavy lifting, dragging both bodies into the front seat of the truck, but she talks Simmons through it, explaining the best disposal procedures. The circumstances aren't ideal; they can't light a fire, not out in the open like this, but Agent Simmons demonstrates a flair for the creative when under pressure. She's able to create an acidic solution from a few of the beauty products in her bag, damaging the DNA in the blood and hair on the pavement and efficiently contaminating any samples left behind. 

Natasha hops into the front seat of the truck, tossing Simmons the keys to their car.

“Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the maps I left in the glove compartment. The DC area follows a predictable pattern. I’ll test you.”

Agent Simmons nods, fiddling with the keys.

“How long should I wait?”

“At least five minutes. I’ll pull over up ahead. Pass me, park a few miles up, out of sight. If anyone pulls over, tell them you’ve called triple-A.”

“Got it.” She glances inside the truck. “Will you be walking then?”

Natasha shrugs.

“This won’t take long.”

Natasha watches Agent Simmons until she sits down in their car, closing the door behind her. Then, she pulls out of the lot, slower than her usual pace. The truck is unwieldily, not well-made. One of the tires on the left side is wiggling; the axel is probably crooked. Which explains why it’s not in use, and why her mercenary pals were able to borrow it. 

The live one whimpers beside her, and she digs her thumb into the skin beside his eye socket, exerting the barest pressure against his eyeball. 

“Knock it off.”

This time, it has the desired effect. 

There’s an empty lot up ahead, beside a diner with boarded up windows. An inconvenient dining establishment, but a convenient place to leave a few bodies. The body beneath her slumps as she leans on the brakes. She parks at the far edge of the lot, sticking her fingers out of the window. Downwind. Good news for the trees lining the highway. Bad news for the abandoned diner, and the next hour of northbound traffic. 

She reaches into the big guy’s front pocket, finding the lighter she guessed would be there (nicotine stains on his fingers and teeth, empty cigarette packs lining the dashboard, faint impress against the fabric and a stain where the fluid has leaked). He whimpers, and she chooses to leave his eye intact. It’s not going to matter in a few minutes anyway. Natasha fiddles with the steering wheel, opening the compartment underneath it. She unsheathes one of her knives, and immediately regrets leaving the man his eye; the minute he sees the knife he starts begging for his life. 

“Shut up. I’m not going to stab you.”

She cuts all the wires connected to the horn and alarms. She takes the time to be sloppy, it can’t look intentional. Natasha double-checks the placement of the gun (in the mercenary’s hand, resting on the seat beside her). Then, she slides out of the truck, slamming the door behind her. 

Upon inspection, the axel on the left side is definitely slanted. Figures. She reconsiders killing the second guy, he’s making an awful lot of noise, but she has to keep in mind that her hearing is sensitive, that she’s been trained to pick up on these things. Still, she stays out of sight as she shoves the mercenary’s shirt into the fuel tank. She leaves enough of it out to last for three minutes, and lights it. Then, she ducks under the cover of the treeline, making fast time through the dense foliage. 

The sound of the explosion is satisfying. 

When she reaches Simmons, the woman gives her a curt nod.

“All done?”

“Yup.” Agent Simmons tries to hand her the keys, but Natasha doesn’t take them right away.

“Is everything-”

“If I tell you where to go, think you’ll be able to drive us?”

Simmons blinks, then nods, smiling mischievously.

“You did say you intended to test me.”

Natasha smiles.

“Let’s see what you retained.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that Age of Ultron is out, I feel the need to mention the timeline. This obviously takes place following the events of CA:TWS. AoU takes place after the end of this fic, but since I made a lot of choices regarding characterization before the AoU changes, I'm going to ignore the new additions to the canon in favor of what I drew from previously (which is a mishmash of pre-AoU MCU and comicsverse). Which is a really long way of saying that I'm putting my hands over my ears and humming.


	6. Corps

Simmons is a cautious driver, but she has a precise memory, and overall they aren’t delayed more than is reasonable. Simmons nudges her gently just as she’s pulling up to the interstate tollbooths. Natasha straightens, pulling the sun visor down to cover their faces. They discuss strategy, Natasha swaps a few less gory anecdotes and allows Simmons to grow comfortable with her. When they enter the city, Natasha directs Simmons to one of her satellite warehouses on the edge of the less exclusive neighborhoods. 

They stop for supplies at a hardware store; Simmons hands Natasha a list and waits outside. It’s an easy trip. She pays in cash. 

They unpack together. The warehouse is well-stocked and secure enough, though Natasha will have to make some improvements if this is going to be a long-term base of operations. Which means more errands. Simmons seems content to stay behind, fiddling with the chemical formula. Which means Natasha can keep her appointment. 

She doesn’t dress for the occasion, and she arrives late, through a staff entrance. The music is swelling as she takes her seat in the northwest balcony. The entire box is booked in her name, every Sunday, every matinee. The audience below isn’t packed, far from it; there are a few retirees that come every week, a rotating group of young couples taking advantage of the earlier show’s cheaper ticket price. Occasional student groups, though not today. No unfamiliar faces, even among the staff. 

She chooses a different dancer this week: Nina Peterson. 

The music swells and her body sways, and Natasha memorizes the steps. Nina’s not the lead, but she’s a good dancer. Natasha knows this; she investigated every dancer in the company. She knows their heights, ages, years spent training, and where. This is a familiar routine; Nina is the mirror image of Angela, the girl Natasha watched last week. It doesn’t matter. Her left arm dips when last week, it was the right one. Little details like this matter. Her shoes are newer, and Natasha makes a note of it. 

She rises from her seat before the curtain call. She’s stayed for it, a few times, but that part of the performance does nothing for her. And it’s not worth the wait. If she stayed, she would have to wait until the entire audience departed, and slip out with the theater employees. 

Just because she's not hiding doesn't mean old habits are easy to break.

Besides, someone out there wants her dead. 

Natasha is outside before the music fades away. 

The studio is nearby. It’s not in use at such a late hour, and the owners have a modest security setup. Natasha goes to the locker room after she checks the perimeter. She’s stashed her set of slippers on top of the lockers. They’ve been specially made for her (well, for someone named Erica Ross, a retired guest teacher that used to work at the studio). The space is dusty, but her bag is fresh, the material dark enough to be invisible beneath the pipes. 

She dresses in front of the mirror, binding her feet inside the shoes the way Nina had. She stretches. She does her normal routine of crunches, pull ups, sit ups, and rollouts. Her wrist is a little sore, but it’s negligible. She discovers no new injuries during her inventory. 

When she’s done, she lays a mat down on the floor, calculating where she’ll need it. She finds the CD she needs, slips it into the radio, and hits play. 

There’s an overture, and a few more beats before she begins to move. She thrusts her right arm outwards, palm down, fingers extended. Graceful. It’s easier to breathe this way, knowing that every breath is orchestrated. She can envision the set, the glittering lights, the smell of dust burning against them, and sweat dropping onto the floor, commingled with makeup. 

Coupé. Her toes ache as she performs en pointe, and she feels her toenails splitting again where she cut them a few weeks ago. Her body works through the steps, picking up speed with the tempo, and she can feel the presence of the other dancers behind her, echoing her steps in perfect unison. Temps lié. There’s something in her thigh, just beneath her hip, a twinge, and she closes her eyes, trying to feel it. Her right shoulder is tight as her arms form a circle above her head, swaying like wings. Dégagé. The ache reminds her of the taste of steel, cold and harsh between her lips- but she knows that part. She keeps moving. The music changes.

This next part is a solo, and she’s already walked through it. She waits, patient, not disappointed when the ache fades away, a memory. She knows disappointment is just a distraction.

This next part is a group number. She leaps onstage, legs in the air, and she lands, and the tremor shoots up through her leg. Demi-plié _._ The old break is giving her trouble, it always does. There are a lot of circles in this part. It reminds her of her training, the defensive aspects are similar. There’s the circle around your body, and the circle around your attacker, or attackers, and as long as you move your feet around the edges of those circles, you can stay out of the line of fire long enough to strike back. Similar, but not the same. Fermé. These circles are part of a group assault, a flock of swans. Natasha dips her hand into the circle, knowing the part is coming. 

There it is. 

The twitch in the music. She feels the moment in her gut, wrenching, and there’s a scent of something sour, brisé, at the periphery of her senses, and this is the moment where she leaps, choreography abandoned, eyes shut, chasing the memory-

She doesn’t land on the mat. 

Arms, strong arms, too solid and mismatched to be mistaken for any other, cradle her. The smell fades, the impression in her muscles forgotten. She opens her eyes. The Soldier’s are wide and blue, glittering above her, brighter and darker than any stage lights. 

“Petrushka.”

She’s solid, dead weight, stony. 

“Swan Lake, actually.”

He nods, looking at the space on the floor just past her shoulder.

“Would you like me to let you go, now?”

She starts to nod, then flips over his arm, grabbing him. Of course, it’s the metal one, she can’t get enough leverage on it to throw him, not from that position anyway. They grapple, and it ends in an awkward stalemate. She glares up at him when he refuses to give any ground, even though she’s already demonstrated that she is the superior fighter. 

“We have a meeting tomorrow. Any reason you decided to move the schedule up?”

He gives as good as he gets, cheeks drawn tight in what must be a semi-permanent scowl. 

“You’re planning to arrest me tomorrow.”

She shrugs, not loosening her grip on the sturdy metal wrist.

“It’s nothing personal.”

His eyebrow curves, he’s attempting to mimic one of her signature expressions. The effort he’s putting into it is amusing. 

“It won’t stop the operation. Might slow it down. Not for long.”

She lets go of him.

“Were you able to get more information for me?”

He lets her circle him, scowling.

“I know about the Bolshoi.”

Her brow twitches.

"You know where it is, or you know it exists?"

He swallows.

"I have a lead."

She rolls her eyes.

“That’s not what I asked for.”

“But it’s what you’re looking for.” Someone’s groomed him. His clothing is clean, if not new. His hair is tied back, out of his eyes, and he isn’t as scruffy, though there are a few missed patches underneath his chin. Possible he shaved himself. Possible he has not checked in with a handler since the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Possible, but not likely.

“And what about the mission you said you want me to end?” She watches the way his muscles tense when she’s behind him, tough knots coiling up and down his back. He’s more alert. Twitchy. “Operation: Orphan. Did you acquire anything else? Something I can use?” She’s surprised he’s lightly armed, only three knives, and one small handgun, with limited ammunition. “Base of operations. Mission head. Optimal result.” She steps back into his line of sight, and he latches on to her like a lifeline. 

“I have been instructed not to disclose that information.”

She crosses her arms.

“Is there anything you _can_ disclose?”

He reaches into a concealed pocket, and she prepares to take him down, but the device he has in his hand is unthreatening.

“A global positioning system.”

She examines it.

“It only goes back a few days.”

He nods.

“The logs refresh automatically.” He licks his lips. “I don’t want it.”

She takes it, examining the machinery. It’s familiar technology. She rubs her thumb against the metal casing.

“Where did you find it?”

He rolls up the side of his shirt. There’s a recently sealed scab at the bottom of his torso, just over the hem of his pants. The cut is crude, gouged out too much of his muscle along with the GPS implant. It’s not healing clean, she can smell infected tissue, but judging from the state of his body, the serum will take care of it eventually. 

“It will confirm my location. Over the last week.”

He doesn’t look finished. She watches him tremble, and articulates her words for their maximum effect. 

“Tell me what you came here to say, Soldier.”

His jaw is tight, but he forces the words through his lips.

“I know what you are looking for is in the Bolshoi chapter.”

“You know because you listened while I interrogated Rumlow.”

He shakes his head.

“I know because _I_ interrogated him. After.”

Bad news for Agent Rumlow. Though, she’s not entirely sure she believes the Soldier isn’t lying. 

“Then you know I’m not looking. What he told me was a fairytale. I want facts, not fictions.”

“The storytellers are not a myth.” She waits for him to continue, and his mouth works like he hasn’t had anything to drink. “I know where one of them is. Not that one. But there are others. Find one, and you can find the trail.”

She shrugs.

“Good of you to tell me. But I thought you wanted my help.”

“It’s a trade. You find what you are looking for. Then you destroy the operation.”

He’s got a nervous twitch she watches out of the corner of her eye.

“You don’t want me to help you, first?”

His jaw clenches. “Incompatible.”

“That’s not a ‘no’.” He doesn’t like the way she’s watching him, but he’s not running. “You could lie. Try to get me to stop the operation, promise you’ll give me the information I’m asking for after it’s done.” She wouldn’t fall for it, of course, but she’s surprised by this play. She’d expected him to be more juvenile in his approach. 

He struggles before he answers.

“I…” he makes a tight noise in the back of his throat. “I can’t do that. I have to do this. This way.”

She nods.

“Very well.” She tilts her head to the side. “If you know so much, then tell me. What am I looking for?”

He stares at her, barely moving. 

“Who you are.”

She doesn’t nod, but he accepts her admission all the same. 

“Do you know why?”

He takes a halting step back. 

“I know what your handlers were willing to tell you. I know,” he waves his hand around the studio, and the reflection of the space between his gloved hand and the sleeve of his shirt flashes in the mirror behind him. “I know, too, some of what their lies were like. But you lived it. You probably have all the answers.” He looks back at her, steely now. “But you’re looking for them.”

She nods. He grinds his teeth.

"Why."

She waits. He closes his eyes.

"The memories are inaccessible." He opens his eyes again. The way he struggles is interesting, like he has a personal stake in her memories. Merits further examination. 

"Is that why you..." he gestures to the room. It smells like waxy floor cleaner. If she reaches, she can make it smell like bleach and slick concrete and a different kind of sweat, the kind that is laced with adrenaline and blood and tension and stinking of fear. 

Bodies carry memories. Even bodies like theirs. That's what he's asking. 

She considers her next move. The secret she carries, it’s nothing that isn’t in her file, for those who care to look. And he’s been alive for a long, long time. He might not have been active in 1989, but he might remember it. And she’s not ashamed, and it’s not personal, not really. Just because she’s never told anyone- no one has ever asked about it. It looks like a birthmark. Why would anyone ask? Decisively, she rolls up her shirt, past the bullet wound, though she smiles at him as she reveals that. No flicker of recognition there. Gesture will read as flirtatious. He will have been trained to ignore such gestures. Two and one quarter inches above the puckered scar, towards the center of her ribcage, are three dots. A triangle. 

“Judging by the degradation of the marks, these are approximately twenty years old. This type of ink was popular in East Berlin before the wall came down. I must have needed to improvise, because it’s the variety of azure primarily used in penknives. The uneven incisions match that indication. It would have been inconvenient, to injure myself like this, it probably did not involve a lot of forethought, but because of those conditions I’m able to pinpoint, with reasonable accuracy, the location. Somewhere wealthy, and private. A study, or an important office. I was not allowed to make another one.”

He takes a step closer, reaching for the marks with his flesh hand. She lets him. He telegraphs every movement, and she observes, waiting, planning, judging his intent with every step. But he only touches it. His skin is cool; the exertion must have heated her body past its normal temperature. 

“You were five years old.”

She nods.

“More or less. I started young.”

“Definitely five.”

So insistent on that age. That part of her file has been redacted, the record intentionally imprecise. He must know, must recall something. Where she was at five years old. She watches his eyes, waiting for him to give himself away, betray his next move. Natasha is almost disappointed when he doesn’t attack.

Instead, he reaches for his metal arm, rolling up his sleeve. When he pulls back against his wrist, contorting it so the joint stretches almost beyond what it can withstand, she sees a few tiny markings there. Dots. No: braille. Inverse, but recognizable. Coordinates, etched in Unified English Braille, hidden somewhere no technician would think to look, not without cause. He surely never gave them cause.

“It’s very far north.”

She knows that place. It was well-publicized a little over a year ago. The less-than final resting place of Captain Rogers. 

“Yeah. Really far. Cold, too.”

He lets go of his wrist, and takes a step backwards. His features contort to something cynical and canny, an expression that resembles those in the war photos she's seen and memorized. 

“Do me a favor, and don’t arrest me tomorrow?”

Her brow twitches. 

“Are you going to make me?”

He sighs, not matching her levity.

“I don’t intend to.” He licks his lips, staring at the floor. “I don’t… want him to see me.”

He means Rogers.

“Good. I don’t want him to see you either.” He perks up at that, and she memorizes this new expression, wide-eyed and lips parted. “Did you think I was going to turn you over to him?”

He nods, slow.

“Why won’t you?”

She clicks her lips.

“Let’s just say I don’t _intend_ to, and leave it at that?”

He gives another shaky nod. He reaches into a pocket inside his coat, revealing a crumbled up receipt. He hands it to her. The paper is thin. She analyses the address, but it's a Starbucks only a few blocks away, time stamped from just before she arrived at the ballet. So, he knew about the appointment, possibly had to wait, possibly wasn't following her up to that point. Possible he just wants her to think this. Unlikely he will return to the same place. And he paid in cash.

"The back."

She turns the paper over. Coordinates. In China. A trail of storytellers, leading to the Bolshoi. 

“Can I go now?”

That’s odd. She jerks her chin towards the door.

“Dismissed.”

He leaves, and she watches him, listening to his footsteps. Her feet are bleeding. The CD is still rotating in the radio, and the speakers are quiet. When she knows he’s gone, she turns it off. Burns the receipt. She examines the GPS in her palm. She’ll have to leave it somewhere annoying. Public transit a good option, but the risk of civilian casualties is too great. She could disable it, but that would call too much attention to the fact that the Soldier is going a little bit rogue. She decides to bury it. In Arlington National Cemetery. She hopes someone in Hydra shares her sense of humor. 

It might just make up for the fact that this is another good location, gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious about the ballet terms: 
> 
> Coupé - Cut  
> Temps lié - Time linked  
> Dégagé - Disengaged   
> Demi-plié - Semi-bent  
> Fermé - Closed  
> Brisé - Broken
> 
> She follows the steps faithfully, but the terms in her head don't 100% synch up to how she's moving in real-time.


	7. Remains

Simmons is still working when she arrives back at the warehouse. Natasha checks in with her, instructs her to get some rest, then spends the next hours scouting for a new holding location. It seems like it may no longer be an option to hold the Soldier, but she wants to be prepared, and she doesn’t want to leave it to chance that he hasn’t already found her other options. It’s irritating, but necessary. And, she completes the task with enough time to retrieve the Winter Soldier file and observe the ceremony for Nicholas Fury. 

The only clean clothing she has is the outfit she wore during her interrogation on Capitol Hill. It makes her recognizable. Not a problem; it is reasonable to expect she will make an appearance at the service. But it is symptomatic of a longer-term problem. Without S.H.I.E.L.D. she will have to take care a lot of these things herself. She is capable, of course. She has spent months undercover, many times. But it is an inconvenience, and this mission is indefinite. And there are other things to consider. With her tongue, she prods her first premolar on the bottom left side. The problem will escalate if she continues to avoid it. 

She considers the best way to accomplish her impending visit to New York during the funeral. She also analyses every face, every twitch, every fleeting thought exhibited by the guests. They are all familiar. There are no surprises, but it is impossible to be too careful, under these circumstances. She concludes that no one present has figured out that Fury is still alive. Rogers is there, with Sam. As expected. They wait, and she waits as well, listening from a distance. After Fury leaves, she delivers the file. Sam gives them some space, a sign that he is being considerate, and she does not think he will be able to hear their conversation, though she allows for this possibility. 

She knows it is improbable, but she makes a final attempt to encourage Rogers to proposition Sharon Carter.

"She's nice." His expression shifts, and Natasha is sure that Rogers is going to choose the Winter Soldier instead. That is going to be aggravating. She is positive that Steve would enjoy Sharon's company, and if she has judged correctly, they are sexually compatible as well. She's glad she decided to censor the file, removing all references to major assassinations (she thinks the shooting on April 4th, 1968, would be especially troubling for Rogers to read about). All references to Hydra compounds are outdated; the file will not lead him anywhere active or dangerous. Just ghosts. 

Not that there was much to begin with. If the Soldier wasn't currently haunting her, Natasha is sure that even she would have a difficult time tracking him, given the information at hand. But she does not want to make this task easy for Rogers. There is no reason to trust the Soldier. He is a weapon. He is dangerous. And Rogers, with all of his strength and all of his courage, will allow the Soldier to kill him. That is not an acceptable outcome. 

She had not planned on kissing his cheek as she leaves. 

She had, however, planned on warning him against reading the file. She turns back around, tells him "you might not want to pull on that thread." It is a metaphor Pierce used, and she remembers the timbre of his vocal pattern as she walks. She adapts her steps, so that she can hear his voice with all the clarity he spoke with in life. 

The grass underneath her feet feels as if it disappears, replaced with clean linoleum. She recalls the anger, rancid and coiling inside her belly. She had been under the impression, mistaken, that being good meant no more children's bodies. And it had been her first mission with the American flag behind her shoulder. And she had wanted him to be pleased with her, to erase any lingering regrets he might have about adopting her as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent. Because if he had doubts, she might be sent back, and she was aware that this was something Agent Barton feared would happen to her. It had been confusing, having so many choices. It made her anxious and confused, and she did the wrong thing and yelled at her commanding officer. It was the culmination of a series of erratic behaviors, and she should have been eliminated long before she had the opportunity to exhibit it. 

"Natasha."

She does not stop, though she is aware that, in her memory, she did. She chooses to keep going, because she does not want to attract attention, she does not need inconvenient questions about her retrieval process. But she feels the stillness of the moment in her joints. Her fingers feel tight; she had them clenched in stiff fists. Threatening posture. Defensive tone of voice. Alexander Pierce was behind her. He waited until she turned around. He held her face in his palms, and pressed a kiss to her temple. 

That action was surprising. It made her heartbeat still. 

"Why are you upset, Agent?"

She had answered automatically, and she can taste the words on her tongue. 

"Because this is not good."

The words made her lips twist along the end of them. Pierce had considered his response to her, rubbing circles into her cheeks with his thumbs, just underneath her eyelids. She had seen the edges of his manicured nails in her periphery.

"Natasha, who told you that you were going to be good?"

Her shoulders feel tight, as they did then.

"Nobody. But." She had stopped herself, until pressure through his fingertips, so close to her jugular just below her ear, had forced her to continue. "I defected. I am supposed to be on the side of what is right and good now. How can I do that, when I am ordered to do bad things?"

She thought he qould be angry, remove her from the program, slap her, throw her, and she felt the potential for it, but he smiled. And it reached his eyes. 

"You're right, Natasha."

She remembers the confusion. How could she be right? She had yelled, disobeyed, left a debriefing before being dismissed. She should have been punished, no, _eliminated_.

"I don't understand."

She had been honest, because she did not know what else to say. Nothing in her previous experience could inform her actions, then.

"This isn't good, you're right. You have a very special set of skills. It's not pleasant, but sometimes you will have to use them to their fullest extent." His breath had been warm, so close to her lips. "All of your training, everything you've been taught, it's so you can do bad things."

That had all been true, had been something she understood. She did not argue. She listened.

"Natasha, sometimes we have to do bad things. But we always do them for the right reasons. That's what makes us different. That's how you can be good. Do you understand?"

Natasha blinks. 

Monica Chang is waiting, as expected, listening to Rogers making plans with Sam through her earpiece. They are examining the file, but Natasha anticipates that Rogers will wish to be alone with it very soon. She slides into the passenger seat of Chang's car. There is an egg and cheese sandwich already waiting for her. It's been kept warm on the dashboard, sitting in the sunlight. She tears away the wrapper, taking a bite. High sodium content. High caloric intake. The flavor has been engineered to taste delicious. Very similar to the last meal she consumed with Chang. It was kind of her to remember.

"Thanks."

Chang waves her hand, short for 'don't mention it', so Natasha eats instead.

"I have a lead on a Hydra compound nearby. Sounds like they're regrouping. Have a feeling Rogers will try to infiltrate. Will make this job very difficult."

Natasha raises her eyebrow.

"Were you able to find a babysitter?"

Chang glares.

"If this asshole is going to lead me hunting ghosts all across Europe, you could at least do me the favor of eliminating the ones that sprouted up in my own backyard."

Natasha blinks.

"Is that a concern for you?"

Chang waits. Natasha assumes that means the answer is yes.

"I can deal with them."

It will be good, actually, she can acquire information to help Simmons.

"Thank you." 

Natasha hands her the empty wrapper, and Chang accepts it, crumbling it up before depositing it in a bag on the armrest.

"Nicholas wasn't pleased to see me."

"Oh really?"

Chang's lips curl into a wry smile.

"Don't be coy, Nat. He was under the impression I'd retired."

Natasha chuckles.

"Feeling smug, then?"

Chang turns to face her for the first time since Natasha stepped into the car.

"Oh yes."


	8. Systemic

The compound is extremely well-guarded. Disguised as an abandoned strip mall, with an impressive amount of attention to detail. There are a few indicators that give them away; too many people parking nearby, the gravel is too well-worn, and the store fronts exhibit a completely identical degree of disrepair. Still, it will pose a few challenges. Natasha watches them for sixty-seven minutes before she feels confident about her ability to infiltrate with minimal personal damage. Destroy some equipment, eliminate all personnel. It's a simple job. She takes another second to consider her options. Normally, she’d be stealthy. After all, this mission isn’t time-sensitive.

Then again, it’s not like she’s hiding right now. She’s on every hit list in the world. Her face is all over the news. If she wanted to hide, really hide, she’d have to go completely off the grid. And possibly change her face. What a hassle.

She’s got things to do.

So fuck stealth.

After she disables the signal tower a block away, Natasha hot-wires the first durable-looking car she can find (she grins, thinking of Steve’s reaction, secretly glad to have found the family car of a Hydra operative). The seat is adjusted for a much taller driver, and she frowns as she forces it into a more comfortable position, snatching the tchotchke hanging from the rearview and tossing it into the back seat. Then she starts the engine and drives through the wall of the compound.

Drywall crumbles all around her, and she turns on the windshield wipers, shooting the first three guards to recover. Awarding herself points for marksmanship (she’d gone for the jugular because the challenge was mildly interesting), she opens the door, using it to shield herself as she opens fire through the shattered window. Natasha scans the room, but there are no surprises. A check-in station, not heavily staffed, but there are plenty of supplies. And there might be a few decryption keys lying around, if she snoops. The other operatives are recovering with difficulty, but she has no doubt they're all armed; there’s one man struggling to crawl away, clutching his side where she’d hit him with the front bumper of the car. He’s coughing up blood and making the most irritating wheezing noises about it.

Without the element of surprise, she needs to dispose of the rest of them with ruthless efficiency. Before they can do something inconvenient like repair the damage she'd done to their communications equipment before she barged in. Reaching back inside the car, she triggers the incendiary device she'd placed underneath the steering wheel, giving herself thirty seconds to get out of the way. It takes her five seconds to shoot two more operatives, clearing her path. In ten seconds, she's leaping over a terminal station, using the monitors to deter enemy fire. She snaps the neck of the woman cowering beneath the station, and shoves one of her pre-programmed flash drives into the base unit serving as the system hub for the compound. More of the operatives have recovered. She could return their fire.

Or she could wait five more seconds.

The car explodes.

She double checks to make sure everyone is dead before she starts poking around. There are few personal effects: one purse, three sets of keys with non-standard issue keychains, one red umbrella, and the remains of several take-out lunches. There's a menu attached to one of the crumbled bags. Natasha thinks Agent Simmons might be hungry when she returns. There are protein blocks stored in the lab, but she's been traveling with Coulson. She will be used to more nutritional variety. Natasha swipes a phone from one of the corpses on the floor, overriding the passcode requirement. Picking up food will be a companionable gesture.

"Georgina's Pizzeria, how may I help you?"

Natasha cradles the cell phone between her ear and shoulder.

"You guys do pick-up?"

The girl on the other side of the line is below the legal working age, and there's a disorganized clatter behind her.

"Sure thing. I have your number as-"

Natasha orders more food than she thinks is necessary, since it's being billed to the credit card they have on file for the cell phone number. She listens to the underaged cashier repeating her order back to her as she sifts through the wreck she's made of the compound. She assembles a tidy pile of weapons (they have an excellent selection of knives and enough surveillance equipment to replace the supply she'd used to track Rogers), laying it all in the center of the room. Her flash drive beeps, signaling the successful retrieval of the system's data. There are sirens in the distance, someone's probably called emergency services for the smoking wreckage of the car.

"I'll have this all ready for you in about forty-five minutes. Is there anything else I can do?"

Natasha grabs a duffle bag from one of the lockers.

"Extra forks and napkins would be great, thanks."

She hangs up. There's a file at the bottom of the bag. Report on airborne chemical toxin. Useful. Simmons might be able to make something of it. Natasha throws her equipment on top of it. She grabs her flash drive, pockets the cell phone, and heads to the back of the compound. The sirens are closer, and the room is filling up with smoke.

One well-aimed kick smashes a hole in the wall. She heaves against it with her shoulder, creating an opening large enough for her to crawl through.

She glances up, scanning the terrain like she always does, and sees the sniper immediately.

He recognizes her, and leans away from the gun, his fingers uncurling from around the trigger.

There's a car parked by the dumpsters a few feet away. From the anonymity of the model, she can safely assume it belonged to one of the dead operatives inside. This, of course, means nothing. He might have been a defector, or just defective. It would be fanciful to assume that the Soldier is on a personal vendetta against Hydra. Loyalties don't change in a day. Recent events have made it clear that Natasha herself is not an exception to that rule.

She salutes, mouthing the word _tovarishch_ , knowing he can read her lips even though there's no point in wasting breath for words he won't hear. He doesn't move. She didn't expect him to. She hoists the bag over her shoulder, pulls her hood over her hair, and starts walking towards the pizzeria. The space between her shoulders prickles, but she's confident he won't shoot. Not when he had the opportunity, as she was emerging from the wreckage and didn't take it. She concentrates instead on reciting the bus routes. If their food is ready on time, she'll be able to return to the warehouse before it gets dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this didn't go up last week as planned! RL kind of kicked me in the teeth there. The posting schedule is going to remain biweekly, so two weeks form now will be the next post.


	9. Anterior

Agent Simmons is pleased. Successful gesture. Simmons has also completed her work on the anesthetic. Natasha appreciates the efficiency. 

"You were right, judging from the blood work, a normal dosage wouldn't completely incapacitate him. Would slow him down, for sure, but he would probably metabolize typical drugs more quickly as well. This-" she hands Natasha a bottle, "is very similar to gamma hydroxy butyrate, though the adverse-"

Natasha hands her a slice of pizza.

"Eat. Then you can tell me all about it."

Simmons takes the food, but she stops herself mid-bite.

"But don't you need to-"

"Change of plans. It doesn't seem like Hydra's planning on taking him in, so his capture is less urgent. I'm going to leave the Soldier to his own devices for a little while. See what he does."

Simmons takes a bite, nodding.

"He may inadvertently lead you to- oh my goodness this is delicious. You have no idea, earlier I was thinking, I'd just _kill_ for something covered in melted cheese."

Natasha smiles.

"Wouldn't want that. Not when you're going undercover in a few days."

Simmons gulps.

"Right."

She looks pale. Natasha considers her options. 

"Let's sit."

They arrange the food on the center of the workbench, sitting on opposite ends. Natasha sips from a bottle of water, handing Simmons an unopened one. She takes it, fiddling with the cap, but she doesn't drink. Natasha waits her out, working on her own slice of pizza. She's halfway through when Simmons starts to speak, practically stuttering in comparison to her usual breakneck pace.

"I know," her fingers tighten around the bottle. "Agent Coulson asked me to do this because it's important. And because- well." She takes a slow, even breath. "Because we both agreed I would be more useful in the field right now."

Natasha shrugs.

"I trust his judgement. But you're still nervous."

She offers a weak smile.

"I'm a terrible liar."

"So don't lie."

The agent's eyes are wide.

"But-"

"Terrible liars make great undercover agents. People trust them."

"Oh."

When nothing else seems to be forthcoming, Natasha keeps talking. 

"If you're going undercover, every lie you tell is going to have to be another lie to remember. They won't hold up under pressure."

Simmons gnaws on her lip.

"But you-"

"I spent years training with the most ruthless spies in the world. And the first lesson they taught me about lying is how to use the truth."

Simmons' throat works.

"Drink. You're thirsty."

She breaks the seal on the cap with more force than is necessary. Natasha waits while she takes a rough gulp.

"All right. Tell me."

Her determination is valuable. 

"You can't think of the people you're working with as the enemy. Because when you're with them, they're not. They are your coworkers, your friends, your neighbors. The only lie you're telling is about who you really are."

Simmons reaches for her discarded pizza, chewing thoughtfully.

"And who I really am is loyal to Coulson."

Natasha shrugs.

"I would omit that detail, if it were me."

Simmons titters.

"Especially seeing as reports of his death were greatly exaggerated."

Natasha takes another sip of water. 

"It's one detail to keep to yourself. Forget it. Most of the time, it's not important. All you need to do is remember at the last moment where you belong."

Simmons finishes her slice, and reaches for another one.

"I'll likely be asked to do something," her brow furrows, "I'd be opposed to. To prove my commitment."

"Definitely."

Simmons winces.

"And how should I-"

"You followed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s orders just fine. Even without the big picture. Did Coulson never ask you to do something unorthodox?"

She bristles.

"He always had a reason-"

"And he didn't always share." She shakes her head. "People don't follow Hydra because they're villains. They do it because they believe that there's a reason behind what they're doing. It might be above their clearance level, but they trust their superiors to lead them. Because they know best."

"But they don't! They're..." Simmons shakes her head.

"They're the same people that were leading you before."

Simmons opens the water again, finishing the bottle. When it's finished, she gasps.

"God, I wish that had been something stronger."

Natasha smirks.

"Save it for the Hydra office party."

Preparing Agent Simmons is easy enough, after that. The file Natasha recovered contains promising research, the kind of thing Hydra would regret losing. Natasha instructs her to hand it in, as a show of good faith. Obviously, they'll know Natasha is the one that stole it, but it is reasonable to believe Jemma Simmons might have been the one instructed to study it, or at least to deliver it. It is a solid plan. Simmons packs up their leftovers and clears away the garbage, and Natasha boots up one of the spare laptops she'd stored in a hidden compartment in the warehouse floor. She checks to make sure it hasn't been tampered with, but it's still in factory condition. 

First, she checks on the status of the files she'd sent to The Rising Tide. Most of the documents have been decrypted and translated. She skims. The documents all appear to be storage manifests for different locations across the Asian continent. There's one mention of Operation: Orphan. Beside it, a word that didn't translate properly. Natasha copies it and pastes it into a search engine. Rakugoka. A Japanese stage performer. A storyteller.

"Damn."

Simmons, digging through her overnight bag, perks up.

"Something I can help with?"

"Doubtful." She shakes her head. "Hydra's not being very opaque about where they store their dirty little secrets. Surprise, surprise."

Simmons hums.

"I could ask..." she shakes her head. "Well, one of the agents I was working with-"

"Skye." Natasha quirks her brow. "Who do you think tipped Coulson off about her?"

Simmons lets out a startled laugh.

"No. Wait. Are _you_ -"

"The Boxer?" She looks up, smiling. "Don't tell Coulson." He wouldn't be upset, but shared secrets make people feel more familiar. "I don't want him to cut off my supply of Russian candy bars."

They chat like that for another twenty-six minutes before Simmons decides to get ready for bed. Natasha is prepared to stay awake for the rest of the night, searching through the documents she recovered on her flash drive. She pulls out another computer, one with a bigger hard drive, and begins transferring files while she goes outside to check for unfamiliar surveillance equipment and intruders. They're secure. There's no sign of the Soldier, either, but that doesn't put her at ease. Confident that she could win in a lethal fight against him, if it came to it, Natasha is aware that he could remain undetected for a long time if he chose. 

Returning, she sets a few traps by the most likely access points, then sits down to read. 

By the time Simmons wakes up, Natasha has the name of a 'rakugoka' that was being detained by the Japanese branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. before Hydra's takeover. The Moranbong chapter. Frequently referred to as one individual. Natasha is still suspicious, but for the moment, it appears the information she got from Rumlow wasn't completely fabricated. There are people responsible for keeping data about Hydra's history stored on them, either in physical form or in their memory. While Simmons prepares breakfast, Natasha finds the location of a remote handler responsible for the security detail placed on the Moranbong chapter. They're in America. That's convenient. She chooses the best candidate for infiltration from the personnel files of the people she'd killed in the evening, running a program to replicate the woman's face and vocal patterns. 

Agent Simmons appears calmer. It's a good sign.

"Ready to start spying?"

She grins. A very good sign.

"Absolutely."

"Good." Natasha takes a bite of cold pizza. "You're going to give me a ride."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ps I am sorry this is a day late. I was celebrating Steve Rogers' birthday. Forgive me.


	10. Metabolic

Natasha picks up supplies at a local mall and changes in the bathroom. She frowns as she stretches the photostatic veil over her face. It's not the most comfortable accessory, and it's definitely too warm to be wearing a wig long-term, but it's necessary. If she's lucky, she'll find what she needs and get out in a couple of hours. She takes an extra drink of water from the tap. Hydration is important, since she's not counting on being lucky. 

Her first errand is at a wash-dry-fold cleaner. She deposits a rucksack full of her dirty clothing, and is assured the task will be complete within four hours. Natasha spends fifteen seconds staring up at the video surveillance camera while the cashier counts her bills. 

Then comes the covert routine. She takes a clandestine route to the Hydra office. Getting in is not difficult. It never is. She'd chosen one of the more outgoing operatives (her file had listed qualities that primed her for a career in leadership), which means all the hard work has already been done for her. All Natasha needs to do is smile, and people will assume that she is who she appears to be, a colleague and a friend. They deliver cues that she can respond to easily ("I can't complain, how are you?"), and she trades off the affable relationship her cover has, getting closer to her mark. 

Archie Phillips. Obviously fake name. His real identity is not useful, so she has not investigated further. What interests her is his occupation. The public title is 'lending and real estate liaison', but People's Trust is not a real bank, and his work history has been skillfully fabricated. She has concluded, based on the reports she recovered from the compound, that his duties as a correspondent between varying overseas offices are understated. She finds his name in a directory while chatting with a secretary about the state of the highway (congested). People leave all sorts of information out when they think their base of operations is secure. 

Third floor. She takes the elevator, greeting anyone that recognizes her with a courteous smile and an inquiry about the sate of affairs ("how are you", "rough week ahead", "oh my goodness"), and directs her line of inquiry outwards. People are often willing to talk about themselves if you exhibit concern and polite interest. They assume they are not giving anything away. It is so much easier to extract information this way. Even though none of it is essential to her current mission, she is aware that Bobbi Morse is undercover and has a reputation for being a 'hard-ass', that there is an important meeting happening on the sixth floor, and that research regarding an ancient artifact described in Masajid of Sankore is going well. She files the data away, knowing she will have time to transfer it to the appropriate agents en route to New York. 

She arrives at the office with 'Archie Phillips' in bold script engraved on the door. He answers when she knocks. Inconvenient, but not a setback. 

"Calinda?" He shakes her hand. "I heard you were, well, missing, you were supposed to report to-"

"Rumors of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated." She presses a finger to her lips. "Can I have a word?"

He ushers her into his office, and shuts the door with a click that echoes.

"Is everything all right?"

She scans the room. No video, but there is audio equipment stored in the light fixture. Not unexpected.

"I received orders from someone higher up." She watches his face. "That's why I didn't report back."

He swallows.

"How high?"

She puts her hand on her hip, mirroring the series of photos of Calinda she'd examined.

"Do you remember your work on the Moranbong chapter?"

He takes a step backwards, accidentally crashing against his desk, upsetting a container of pens.

"Holy- _that_ high up." He is nervous, but not suspicious. It is because of the nature of the orders, and not because of any cue she has missed or given. This makes sense. If there are agents carrying the undocumented history of Hydra, it would be essential to impress upon every person aware of this fact the extreme importance of their secrecy and security. Archie Phillips probably did not have clearance until he passed a series of rigorous tests confirming his loyalty and fortitude against torture. He is recovering from his surprise, and he sits.

"Okay." He tidies the pens. "And they wanted you to check in with me?" She nods. "Fine. What's your clearance?"

He gestures to the chair across from him, and she sits.

"I'm not cleared, not yet. They ordered me to convey everything I knew, to make sure I didn't uncover anything sensitive in the field."

He takes out a pad of paper.

"And if you did?"

She chews on the inside of her cheek.

"I fully expect to be reassigned. I know this is all above me." She cracks a smile. "Honestly, I'm just looking forward to forgetting all this ever happened."

He grins back at her, grabbing one of the pens and clicking it three times.

"Sure, sure. Just tell me what you know, I'll check my file to see if there are any red flags."

She drags out the conversation for as long as she needs to. His notes on Moranbong are all encoded, and she has to read them in reverse, but it's easy enough to figure out (he's got the encryption key taped to the bottom of his computer screen, and she can see it in the reflection of his glossy desk). By the time 'Calinda' has discussed the most extraneous details about the operation, Natasha knows that the Moranbong chapter was captured by the Japanese branch of S.H.I.E.L.D., being held for eventual hostage exchange with North Korea. Agents working for Hydra had been delaying the transfer, counting on Project Insight to solve the issue. When it failed, Hydra had taken over the Japanese offices, and in the chaos, the prisoner had escaped. She manages not to groan when she sees where the Moranbong chapter is currently being held. It's a good thing she already needed to visit Tony Stark; she's going to have to borrow some equipment. 

Archie Phillips is so polite when he says goodbye. He seems to think her discovery is minor, and tells her not to worry too much about it. It's going to be embarrassing for him when he realizes Calinda is dead, and has been for several hours. 

She exits the building the same way she came in. From there, it's simple enough to duck into a nearby fast food chain, ordering a meal she knows will take extra time to complete. She changes her outfit in the bathroom, removing Calinda's face. She has to rinse her sweaty skin in the sink, and the cool water is refreshing after the time spent underneath the digital mask. 

The food is hot when she emerges from the restroom. She eats as she walks, collecting her laundry with a cocky grin for the camera. That will be irritating for the Hydra agent that works out her deception. 

After that, it's a short walk to the train. She travels back to DC, using her phone to book two busses and a flight. She has to borrow another S.H.I.E.L.D. car to drive around DC, collecting the essential belongings and shutting down a few overnights. The other safe houses are locked and ready if she needs them. She drives past Monica Chang when she tails Rogers, but is rebuffed, which means that the surveillance is going fine. She parks the borrowed car in a garage downtown, in a spot she knows won't be checked, since it's on the top level in a low-volume neighborhood. Time is moving in a way she knows well. She is early for the bus, exactly as planned. It will not be the most comfortable journey, but she does not intend to be conscious for most of it, so that will not be a problem.

She claims her ticket for Rhode Island, and then loads herself and her cargo onto the bus headed for Boston. It is a little out of the way, but the trip will last for more than ten hours, which is all she needs, and it has the design specification she requires: the bus model has been constructed in such a way that she can lie down in the space between the back wheels behind the stored luggage without being detected. It will be loud, but her body will not notice, and the exhaust fumes will not empty out into her lungs. 

She lays her bag in front of her body, and listens as others are loaded in front of her. When the bus begins to move, she allows herself to sleep. 


	11. Conditioning

He is aware, in a distant part of his mind, that there are worse things that can be done to him. Permanent damage can be done to his body. Limbs, taken and replaced. He can be reprogrammed, and the process will set back his training by weeks, or months. There are more painful methods that can be used to teach him this lesson, electric shocks to his nervous system or elixirs that burn like acid as they circulate in his blood stream. He can be completely decommissioned, and his body will never be found. 

It does not matter. Those options are not present. 

He is lowered, and he is proud that he does not flinch, though it would not matter. He doesn't struggle, because he knows that the outcome is inevitable. He will be overpowered. There are too many guards, and he is drugged and injured, and the building will self-destruct before he is allowed to escape from his handlers' control. The ladder descends slowly, and he hangs on to the coarse, wooden rungs until his feet touch the bottom. 

He knows it will be unpleasant to look up; he does anyway. The vertigo, the nausea, the creeping, aching fear that strikes him just behind his eyes overtakes him, but he can't relinquish this last gasp of light before the cover is sealed and he is left in darkness. 

The hole is narrow, and not very deep. He knows, because he is breathing and the air isn't thin and he knows that if they wanted to kill him he knows that he would die conspicuously, in front of the others, he would be an example, so he _knows_ that there is air, that there is enough, but he feels that there is a terrible, a crushing, a _pressure_ , and it's like a fist closing around his lungs, and it burns like a fire every time he tries to breathe. He paces. There is not far to go. He paces again. The meager length of the cell. The pit. He licks his lips. He closes his eyes. He opens them again. It doesn't make a difference. He can't see anything. 

He feels the muscles in his stomach jerking, and he goes to his knees, heaving, but his stomach is empty. His throat fills with bile, and he can't keep it down, and soon enough he has the acrid stench of stomach acid for company in the empty heart of the Red Room. 

There's no use counting. Minutes. He tries, knowing there is no point, no one  is listening, but he doesn't know when it's supposed to end. That's the point. He's supposed to spend his time in there waiting, and waiting. And waiting. And he knows that is the point. He understands that he is supposed to feel as if he has been forgotten by the world, as if there will never be an end to it, as if he does not exist, as if the world is only that little space, that nothing, that thin emptiness, and that no one is thinking of him, because he does not exist at all. He knows he is being made to feel these things, but he feels them anyway. He can't help it. It is an effective punishment. He knows that when he exits the cell, when he is allowed to exist again, anything outside the hole will feel like a blessing. He does not want to understand this, but he does. 

He speaks to himself. At first, the sounds is comforting, but as his voice grows ragged and the words start to come out in German and Russian and English and French and he stops understanding what they all mean, it is no longer a comfort to know that he is clever. 

Cleverness doesn't mean anything when there is no time and no one and no thing. He attempts to scale the wall, even though he knows this will be impossible. They are rough and coarse but they are solid, with nothing to grip, and though the cell is narrow, it is long enough that he will not be able to suspend his body in the air between the walls. Trying is frustrating, but standing still hurts, and pacing makes his heartbeat manic and his breath comes short and he doesn't know what else to do and he knows this is the point. 

Dark and thin and raw and alone. 

There is no hope down there. That is the intention. You are left alone until you forget what it means to hope. Food is delivered through a hole in the ceiling, but it never arrives with light, and it is always hard and stale and there is no flavor, it just tastes like dust. Somehow, there is enough water in it to sustain him, though his lips crack as they grow parched. 

He knows that this is the point. 

* * *

South Station is not heavily policed, but there are cameras everywhere. She tucks her hair behind her ears, obscuring it with a cap and hood, waiting until all of the passengers have retrieved their belongings before she slips out of the bus. Waiting until the driver enters the station, she hoists her bag over her shoulder and walks into the lobby with a group of passengers arriving from Philadelphia. 

Natasha knows without checking that she has an hour before the bus bound for New York. She uses the time to relieve herself in the restroom, and purchase a breakfast sandwich. The over-lit building stings her light-sensitive eyes. 

She boards the bus without incident. The fake name she gave must not have drawn anyone's attention. She'd used an American Express gift card to make the purchase, and she thinks she will be able to use it a few more times before a pattern emerges and it becomes unsafe. She will purchase more when she arrives in New York.

The wireless connection on the bus is enough to work with. Natasha chooses the seat closest to the bus restroom. She pulls out her laptop, leaving her bag on the seat next to her. No one tries to sit beside her. She downloads all the files she needs before the bus leaves the station, and spends the next five and a half hours making the necessary plans. It will be difficult, but she can accomplish everything she needs without outside assistance. 

New York is quiet when she disembarks. It is early. She has decided to visit her assets on the East Side before the necessary procedure with Tony Stark. She takes a cab.

They are setting up for their morning workout when she arrives. She waves at Antonio and lets him hug her when she reaches the park. He pats her shoulder, too, the greeting he usually reserves for his masculine acquaintances. She assumes this is because he was sufficiently impressed by her skills the last time she worked out with them. 

He wants to show her photos of his daughter, and she looks at them, making noises she'd head Pepper Potts making once in similar circumstances. The child is small, but her expressions are active and engaged, suggesting advanced intellectual capacity. She tells Antonio this, and he laughs, talking about the television shows the child watches, and a propensity for using words that seem funny to him, "It's some four-point SAT shit". This is all customary. It is a relief when the others arrive. She knows most of them already, and those that are new seem to have heard of her reputation, and are not surprised that she intends to join them.

They leave their bags underneath a cluster of benches, and start with a run to warm up. The highway is flickering to life on her right, and she watches the cars passing them without concern. In the center of the group, she is virtually invisible, just another sweaty body. She's light-skinned, but she's wearing dark grays and blacks, and the speed of the cars, will make it impossible for the drivers to distinguish between her and the other runners. 

It's brisk, and though running has never been a priority for her, it is good to warm up after the cramped hours she'd spent in the busses. 

The weight training is what she came for. There is a competitive air among the group, but she ignores it in favor of recalibrating her muscles. The injury she sustained while fighting the Winter Soldier on the bridge has healed, but constant conditioning is essential to maintaining the quality of her strength. Antonio is no longer impressed by her abilities, and he is a decent spotting partner, but she feels others in the group staring at her as she lifts. The distraction is causing them to perform fewer repetitions in their own workouts. She rolls her eyes, and it makes Antonio laugh.

"They're just not used to a chick who can bench press them out of business."

She snorts, and keeps lifting. The sweat coating her skin is familiar, but it does not muster any recollections. She chose to work out with this group because their routine was so vastly different from anything she had ever known before. They work the same muscles, but their demeanor is nothing like her previous trainers', and the gymnastic feats they perform on the bars are less about grace and discipline than they are about showmanship. It is not useful for combat, but that is not the purpose of exercise. The purpose is to remain fit. And working with a group of amateur acrobats means she can do so without the remaining unsorted memories diverting her attention when she does not need them. 

After a few hours, she has paid enough attention to all of her major muscular groups, and made enough casual conversation with Antonio and the others to continue their beneficial relationship. One of the men offers to get her a cab, but she defers, lying about taking the train, knowing she will be able to catch a cab faster than he can. 

Tony, once he tears himself away from his latest mechanical infatuation, is excited and confused to see her.

"This is weird. Normal visitors come through the front door. And Jarvis usually says something. Jarvis, what the hell buddy, do I need to invest in a dog?"

"My apologies sir. Agent Romanoff has proven herself to be very evasive. I was not on the alert for a home invasion because she has been classified as a friend-"

"Well, we'll have to fix that then, won't we?" Tony's nose is twitching as he speaks. "Not the friend thing, the home invasion thing. Friends don't let friends invade their homes without making it challenging, am I right?"

Stark will keep talking until he dies. She doesn't need to fill the spaces in between his words, because he's already constructing the conversation for her.

"Let's see. You're here because you want to arrest me? No, that's not it. I haven't done anything illegal yet. And anyway you'd be severely outgunned, and I get the feeling you're a planner. We already know you're not here to spy on me, because we know how well that worked out for you last time-"

Jarvis interrupts.

"It worked out very well for her, actually-"

"Maybe you're here to replace Jarvis!" Tony snaps. "I think he talks too much, personality's not as hip as it was ten years ago. It's time for a change."

She smiles as he removes his work gloves, stepping around the clutter and wreckage adorning his workroom to shake her hand.

"Oh wait, no. There's something terrifying and all-powerful threatening the planet. Yeah, that's it you have that look in your eye, the world is about to be destroyed and you really need me to come to the rescue and save it. I knew it, you know my horoscope warned me about this and I am so glad I took it seriously-"

"I need a favor."

That actually silences him for a second, and he has to blink through his confusion.

"You're asking me for a favor?"

She shrugs one shoulder.

"I need a time-released estrogen formula, blood tests, an MRI, and a set of stirrups." Watching him, she can tell he's got everything she needs. "For a manual exam."

He barely catches that last bit.

"Sure. Okay. I can do all that." His head rocks from side to side. "Well, most of it. Hormones aren't really my wheelhouse, I'm more of a 'machines go boom' kind of guy, you should really-"

"I know." She sighs. "All you have to do is replicate a sample. That's _all_. Nothing extra."

He takes a deep breath, letting the air fill up his cheeks as he exhales slowly.

"Do I get to find out what this is all about?"

Her left eyebrow twitches.

"If you do the MRI, you'll see."

He rubs his palms together.

"Element of surprise! Duh. What am I scanning?"

She smiles.

"Me."


	12. Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a new tag, there's a note at the bottom to elaborate if you're worried about triggers more than you care about being spoiler-free.

Lying down, she concentrates on releasing the stubborn tension in her lower back. Her spine resents the contortion required to rest still and straight on a flat surface. She has been examined in this way before, many times, but she remembers being held down, or kept still, the sensation of something hard and stable on her ankles and torso and wrists. Too, she remembers the heavy feeling of sedation. 

The machine is sterile and the room is tidy. Natasha assumes it doesn't get much use. The blood draws are easy enough, and he assures her that the tests will only take a few moments to process, that it should all be complete by the time the scans are done. She lies down for the machine and Tony fiddles with the controls, keeping up the commentary, which she filters out until it becomes useful. 

"-and this is actually really cool, because I can make a three-dimensional replica of- um." The bed of the machine rolls out, and she sits up, staring at the holographic image of her insides. Tony is staring, too. "I don't know how to tell you this, but you've got an implant in your-"

"I know."

He swallows.

"You know."

He frowns.

"Where your cervix would-"

"I know." She stretches her neck. "It belongs there."

Tony's face transforms into a series of waves and wrinkles while he examines the readouts beside the holographic screen. 

"You sure about that?"

She watches his reactions, taking a calculated risk by opting for honesty. 

"When I was a kid, one of the ops I was on went south. Screwed up my adrenal system." She grins at his reflection in the metal cabinets. He doesn't catch it. Distracted. "Modern science came up with an alternative."

"All hail the motherland." He snorts at his own joke. "So that explains the estrogen." He snaps up the stylus stored behind his ear. "And the stirrups. Thought you were kidding, by the way. I don't know what you think of me, but that's not the kind of equipment I usually keep on hand."

She's itching to recover her weapons, stored in the adjoining room, safely away from the magnet.

"But the hormones? You can replicate them."

"Of course I can. I've had the program running since you got up. Shouldn't take long. I'd tell you to make yourself at home, but I have no idea what the state of your home is. Do you live in the sewers?" He turns off the hologram. "Don't take that the wrong way, it's just that I always imagined you and Fury as like, the Ninja Turtles or something. I guess that's insensitive." He fiddles with his tablet some more, not looking at her. "So, make yourself at home, I'll have something ready for you in a few hours. Less, if I don't get distracted by something more exciting."

She offers him an arcane smile. He makes a clicking sound with his lips. 

"Right. Well. There's probably some standard-issue questions I'm supposed to ask, but since I am _not_ a doctor, I'm not going to ask them." He looks up and appraises her, still twitchy and wired. "But you're feeling all right? When you're not getting shot at and keeping up with super-soldiers and all that? You totally could have called me, by the way- that's not the point. You're fine? No side effects? Morning sickness, dizziness, signs that some part of you is bleeding on the inside that you've failed to mention because you were busy being stoic and unavailable while you seduced hapless billionaire playboys?"

She waits until he runs out of breath to mutter a succinct "nope". 

"Excellent." He pauses, but she's found that staring at Tony Stark and waiting politely is a more efficient means of communicating with him. "Not that I don't enjoy our talks, because believe me, I do, really, I cherish them, actually, but it seems like you could have gone to a real doctor for this. Banner, for example. Why me?"

She hasn't decided in advance how to answer the question. It's not one that she thought he'd ask. Pierce had conducted one of her exams, early on, when she was still a secret to all but a few hand-picked confidantes. Tony Stark's machines felt nothing like Pierce's stethoscope, warmed by his breath before he pressed it against her ribs to listen to her (perfectly functioning) lungs. Pierce had smiled, and explained every procedure to her, telling her how much blood needed to be drawn, and why. Tony Stark let her take care of those details herself. He barely looked at her, more fascinated by the readings displayed on his consoles and screens. He is an ally. He is not a friend. He does not smile at her, or use a patient tone of voice. He acts like a mechanic, and he treats her like a car.

This time, he waits for an answer.

"Maybe I like our talks, too." She winks. "And Banner would definitely say 'no' to the stirrups."

Stark's lips curl like he's kicking himself for expecting anything less than snark. He fumbles for a chair, rolling away to jot a few notes down on a tablet.

"He might surprise you. Or, I forget, do you not 'do' surprise? If I threw you a birthday party, would you be expecting it? Probably, now that I've told you. Or maybe I'm telling you so you'll be expecting it, so I can do something else instead. Where are you-"

She steps through the door.

"You told me to make myself at home."

She closes the door on his retort. There's reconnaissance to do. Natasha reloads her gear, counting every weapon and double-checking her ammunition before she gets to work. 

She starts with a full circuit of the floor, observing the surveillance and security mechanisms installed in the building. There won't be a way to override them, not quickly, and any failed attempt will be noticeable. Any effort to steal weapons from Stark Tower will set off alarms throughout the complex. She enters the closest elevator and instructs Jarvis to take her to the residential section. She's impressed by how well-guarded the building is. Her impression of Stark's head of security was not favorable, but it seems her initial assessment was correct: he is employed for sentimental reasons, not practical ones. Stark doesn't need a person in charge of security, not when he's constructed his mechanical empire to protect himself thoroughly enough already. 

"Here you are, Agent Romanoff. You'll find a room has been prepared for you at the end of the hall on your right. The refrigerator is well-stocked, and if I may suggest-"

"I've got it."

The silence of the AI doesn't fool her; she knows she's being watched constantly. Not that she's revealed anything; her bored expression is fine-tuned. 

She makes herself tea, eating anything ready-made. There's cubed cheese, two bananas, half a pound of sliced turkey, a handful of unsalted cashews, and a salad with broccoli and quinoa. She barely tastes the food as she eats, pacing the room. Protein, calcium, vitamins. The tea has steeped enough by the time she's done a full circuit of the well-furnished apartment. She carries the mug into the tasteful bathroom, leaving it by the sink as she undresses. She shower is spacious and there are a superfluous number of options regarding water pressure, speed, amount, and temperature. She chooses the most basic, massaging cold water into her muscles. At least Tony was considerate enough to leave her a dull, unscented bar of soap. She sips the tea as she rinses the sweat from between her toes. Natasha remembers hearing an anecdote about tea being comforting. The flavor is floral, acidic, and nutty. It isn't bad, but she finds it to be no more comforting than other water. 

"So sorry to disturb you, Agent Romanoff, but if you would prefer to wear something clean after your shower, clothing in your size has been provided. I can have your items washed for you-"

"Thank you, Jarvis. I'll do that."

She turns off the water, dabbing herself dry. The air is lukewarm and heavily filtered. She wraps herself in a towel, pinning it in place with one of her knives, and exits the bathroom. She'd catalogued the clothing during her search of the suite; muted colors, pragmatic style. It is, she realizes, considerate. The gesture corroborates the note she'd made in her report about Stark; aloof, prone to impersonal, often grand acts of kindness. She has rarely seen him exhibiting this degree of thoughtfulness, and assumes that Miss Potts was consulted. 

Natasha dresses, arms herself, and heads downstairs to rejoin Stark. 

She sees his reflection grimace when he hears the elevator doors gliding shut behind her. 

"This is weird. I said that. But I want you to know. In case it's escaped you, what you're asking me for is really, really weird."

She sits across from him, staring.

"But I can do it. If that's what you're asking with that death-glare. I was able to get a decent rendering from the scan, and from there- does any of this actually interest you? Probably not. Anyway." His forehead twitches. "I'm ready when you are."

She smiles like she'd smiled at Hogan just before she flipped him onto the boxing mat.

"Lead the way."

Stark gulps, and stands. 

He has an exam table prepped for her, a sheet neatly folded on top of the protective paper. While she undresses, he sits and fiddles with an array of tools beside the table, though from glancing at them she knows everything is ready. He washes his hands, putting on gloves. The awkwardness gesticulated by his posture is a mild surprise, but she's not concerned. When she's finished removing her pants and underwear, Natasha settles onto the edge of the exam table, laying the sheet across her lower body.

"Are you decent?"

She snorts.

"Right." He wheels around to face her. "I should probably mention this is going to be uncomfortable- well, you know that, I'm assuming this isn't, that I'm not your- you know what? I'm just going to get started."

She nods, lying back. She places her feet in the stirrups, and Stark's teeth click.

"Right."

He wheels closer.

"Okay. Natasha, I'm gonna tell you right now, I have fantasized about this moment, but not at all like this. This is possibly the farthest thing from that fantasy, and definitely one of the weirdest things anyone has ever asked me to do. And I get around. Why didn't you go to Banner with this again?"

"Because he would say no."

"Right." He huffs. "There's um, I'm sure you know this, but-"

"That's normal."

"Okay-"

"Any day now."

She forces herself to stay still when she feels him, taking even breaths. "You're going to feel some pressure, and then a pinch. Totally normal."

"Mm-hmm."

She feels it. Harmless. 

"And this is the new stuff. Same formula, don't worry, I didn't add any bells or whistles."

She lets out a breath as he inserts it.

"Nice of you to show some restraint."

"Yeah! Well. The whole almost-dying thing seems to have mellowed me out a bit." 

He rolls backwards in his chair. "All done."

She closes her legs, sitting upright. 

"Right. Well, aside from the scarring, and bearing in mind I'm not an expert, well, not a medical one anyway, my knowledge is more social-"

She cuts him off.

"Looks normal?"

"It's lovely. Does what it's supposed to?"

Her lips twitch.

"So far."

"Good news." He tosses his gloves in the garbage. "Those scars are-"

"Old. Dilator. Probably not fit for polite conversation."

Tony groans.

"Sure. If that's what we're going for, a dilator-related injury is probably not the most polite topic of conversation."

He gets up to wash is hands, coating his palms with soap. 

"Speaking of, how's my bedside manner? Not that I'm looking for a career change or anything, but it seems like-"

She tunes him out. He's still twitchy, more than usual, but he's talking to her over his shoulder, and the way he averts his eyes as she steps back into her clothing reads as polite, and delicate. It doesn't give her the same sensation as a dismissal. Stark's tone is not changed from his prior familiarity. He is strange, and speaks fast, favoring quantity over quality with his language, but it means the room is not filled with an angry kind of silence. Pierce was like that, sometimes. For a second, the air smells more humid, more like the medical facility in DC where she began her integration into S.H.I.E.L.D. Pierce had been welcoming at first, helped her seat herself, told her to relax, said "this isn't my first rodeo", meaning he was not inexperienced. When he finished, he did not feel the need to behave in a comforting or familiar way, and the abrupt change had been. Unsettling. 

She bites the inside of her cheek, staring at the space between Stark's shoulders.

"Your bedside manner is fine, Stark."

He starts to turn, then stops himself.

"Are you-"

"It's fine."

He turns around then, drying his hands.

"You can call me Tony, you know. It's cool. I mean, I call you Natasha, sometimes, I probably should have asked or whatever, but I feel like we're at that point, you know?"

She waits for him to talk it through.

"I mean, I was kind of a jerk for a while. We started out not great. And that was like, partially my fault. You were under orders, but that probably wasn't a good enough reason for me to 'behave like an ass', or whatever."

She assumes that the finger quotes indicate a phrase Miss Potts has used. 

Tony holds his hand out to her.

"So there. We're teammates. First name basis. And I'm sorry, or something."

Natasha shakes his hand, saying, "I'm sorry too", because it seems like what she should do.

He squeezes her hand, not aggressively, before letting go.

"I know you're probably not, but I appreciate the sentiment."

She smiles, making it look genuine.

"Well. That was bizarre. Same time next year? Standard nondisclosure agreement. I agree not to share your private medical information with anyone, and you agree to continue not killing me."

Natasha heads for the door.

"Dead men tell no tales."

"Hilarious. I'm laughing on the inside. Don't make too many incorrect character assessments or steal a bunch of Stark Industries secrets on your way out."

She pauses with her hand on the doorknob.

"Actually."

He perks up.

"I didn't mean it."

She grins over her shoulder.

"Is it stealing if I promise to bring everything back in one piece?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha gets a vaginal exam, which includes modifications being made to a hormonal implant. She has it because her adrenal system was damaged when she was a child. The experience isn't painful so much as really uncomfortable. 
> 
> Weirdly enough this chapter was written before AoU came out. It emerged for reasons of plot. And also from my general frustration with the MCU treating Natasha like the team bicycle. I just took it to the worst extreme possible.


	13. Emulation

Natasha leans away from the scope.

"Soldier."

He was quiet when he approached, but the wind changed and gave him away. Unpredictable, at such heights. Any half-decent sniper would know that. And any undercover agent would prepare for that. The Winter Soldier is perhaps one of the finest snipers in the world, and he's been presumed dead for seventy years. She concludes that he wanted to alert her, which means he does not wish to dig a bullet out of his chest after startling her. Excellent choice.

"You found it?"

She rolls her stiff shoulders.

"I found someone."

He sits beside her, looking without seeing, at the heavily guarded building ahead of them. The lights of Hong Kong feel brighter than sunlight down on the street; from above, the city is a brilliant mass of technicolor and sound. Barton once mentioned that he enjoyed views like this one, that it made the word feel small and safe when he could look down at it from far away. Natasha is still not sure what he meant. It is 19:36 in Pakistan. He will be finishing dinner.

"Do you have more information for me?"

The Soldier shifts, reaching into his breast pocket.

She tenses, watching his hands. He's not braced to assault her, and his position is not advantageous. From the folds of his coat, he plucks two candy bars, wrapped in bright foil.

"Long surveillance means it will be difficult to eat."

He hands her one of the bars, unwrapping the other one. He bites into it, halving the chocolate. He chews more thoroughly than he did before, swallowing methodically before he finishes the candy. She opens the one he handed to her, sniffing it.

"I didn't poison it." He looks at her, one eyebrow arched. "But I can't fault you for checking."

She takes a small bite, letting the smooth chocolate melt across her tongue. It tastes sweet, and makes one of the molars at the back of her mouth sting. She swallows, and takes another bite, avoiding that section of her mouth.

His voice rumbles. "You said someone."

Watching him in her periphery, she sees the Soldier blink.

"I did."

He licks his lips, chasing traces of chocolate.

"I thought there would be more than one."

She adjust her scope as the security team undergoes a shift change.

"Why?" 

He crumbles the candy wrapper, storing it inside his coat. The material is thin. More suited to the streets beneath them. It's colder at the top.

"I thought there might be others they were telling their stories to."

Natasha feels her lip curl.

"The point is not to tell."

The Soldier grunts. Minutes pass without movement except for the shifting wind. It smells like rain. Below, the shift change is complete. No contact made with the target.

"What about Operation: Orphan?" He is silent. "I looked. There's nothing in the digital files I released. Not by that name."

The Soldier swallows.

"The Mission Head forbade documentation."

A reasonable precaution. But the information needs to be somewhere. Well-guarded, inaccessible, not the kind of data that can be unencrypted or downloaded. Hydra began as the Nazi science division, but it has grown since then. It's brilliant, she can recognize that this is brilliant. A person, a number of persons, assigned specific pools of data. Not connected to anyone, isolated from one another, compiling and memorizing the missions and operations for which no documentation exists. The Soldier's chest rises and falls, she can see the barest hint of movement reflected in the glossy surface of her rifle. She needs to know if he knows.

"The data is analog then." There's a flicker of movement down below, but it's only a meal delivery. "It's secure in some respects. But extremely vulnerable to human error."

He hums. "It is contained."

He sounds sure. Perhaps he has looked. Perhaps he did not find what she found, buried in shipping manifests and translated from a language she doesn't speak. Perhaps he is not aware that the Moranbong chapter is said to contain information regarding Operation: Orphan, and that it contains nothing about Agent Natasha Romanoff, the defector, previously Natalia Romanova, code name черная вдова, call sign second, short for second sister.

There is too much about the Soldier that she cannot be sure of.

His clothes are new and indicate only that he has been in Hong Kong, the scent of traffic and food and neighborhood smells clinging to the material. He has been near public transit. That is all. He is not cleanshaven, but the growth of his facial hair is even, and calculated to obscure his face without drawing attention. She has used similar tactics. His posture is comfortable. Accustomed to waiting. There is nothing she can glean from him. He is spotless.

"The last time we met," she leans away from the scope, "you said it had to be this way. That I would find what I was looking for first, and then I would destroy Operation: Orphan." He doesn't move. "Can you tell me why?”

He isn't as tense as he was a week ago when he answers, "I can't override the command."

She nods. There is a command then, one which forbids him to tell her why she must follow her own history first. It is frustrating. But it is also a good sign. She is confident she could overtake the Soldier if he tried to deter her, or prevent her from pursuing the target because the Soldier's commands dictate the order of events. He has not tried to stop her. It means he doesn't know what the Moranbong chapter contains. If it truly does contain the history of Operation: Orphan. Which it might not. There is only one way to tell.

"This is going to take some time."

He stares at the scope.

"Have you accounted for-"

"Of course."

He grins, small and shy, but his eyes glitter, picking up traces of the sparkling lights beneath them.

"Well done."

She returns his smile.

"There's a hotel two miles south of here. Very scenic. “Same altitude, six days from now?"

He offers her his hand. She takes it. They shake.

 

* * *

She finds a new place to sleep every other night. There is a neighborhood to the south where addicts sleep in condemned complexes, and she blends in well enough as long as she obscures her features to conceal her whiteness. The same is true of the Uigher colony on the outskirts of modern civilization. She adapts the affectation and stride of the younger men, makes a digital copy of an anonymous face (an amalgamation of several missing persons), and says a few words in the relatively obscure language and she passes for uninteresting. She sleeps in a binder, because she can't take it off, too public, too much chance of discovery, and she bruises her ribs. Her equipment is disguised as a tent, anonymous and obscured by the reality of homelessness scattered across the city. She returns to it as necessary, swapping out her roughshod disguise for the glossy veneer of a European tourist. She eats dressed like this, at bars that pretend to imitate local cuisine, per their English language advertisements. A woman traveling alone attracts attention, so she signs up for tours of the city, photographing potential escape routes and attractions alike. There are millions of people in Hong Kong. After her survey of the target, she is sure that she is indeed only looking for one.

The security detail is well-structured. Personnel rotate frequently, limiting contact with the target. No time to establish a relationship, isolation tactics. The routine is usually reserved for prisoners. The Hydra secret-keepers must occupy a similar position.

She has concluded that the safety of the storytellers largely relies on secrecy. The Japanese S.H.I.E.L.D. office couldn't have known the value of their captive. They made no effort to torture him. That is the flaw. It is impossible to resist prolonged torture. The only guaranteed security is to ensure information is never carried in its entirety. You can't give away what you don't know. The Russians understood this. The taught her how to forget anything. To forget so completely, she might as well have never known.

She wonders if the woman tailing her was taught the same skill.

The gloves give her away. It's too warm for them. The face she's wearing is digital. Natasha recognizes the facial structuring algorithm. Her hair is neat, and the wind as it picks up barely touches it. A wig then, one that's been woven close to her scalp. Once Natasha recognizes the disguise, she can infer that the woman is hiding something underneath her gloves. She's constructed herself to appear Punti, but she needs to conceal her hands. Her skin tone must not match. And there's no way to digitally transform hands.

The woman knows how to walk. Natasha sees the training in the way she trails her down the sidewalk. Slow, uninterested, glancing at street signs, paying attention to vendors. She knows the elegant choreography of covert tailing. One of her sisters, then, though she would have been part of a satellite program. There are no dark-skinned sisters in Natasha's memories of Russia.  

Natasha goes into a hotel, and the other allows herself to be led. Up, she knows there will be empty rooms, further, somewhere that will not pose the risk of civilian casualties, climbing, somewhere they will not be seen. The tail follows her, and her body changes. She drops the cover once they are out of sight completely. She understands what Natasha is trying to tell her. They part from one another, but Natasha knows the other will find her. She waits, patient and calm.

The face has been removed when she arrives, and she is tugging at her gloves. Posture, firm and prepared. Her skin is dark, cidery brown, and her body is round and slender. Her eyes are emerald green. Natasha recognizes those eyes, though she has never seen their like before. They are as significant as her own shock of blood-red hair. Something tampered-with in their DNA. Something that marks them.

"Sister." The other inclines her head. Her voice is deep and firm.

"Likewise," Natasha follows the gesture, as innate as her next breath. It indicates a familiar signal. _I have been trained the way you have been trained_. Different bases, different rooms, but the training did not resist duplication. _We are evenly opposed_. The original model was efficient. Natasha knows it is up to her to make the first move. Efficient, and she sees that effective motion reflected back at her, the way it was for so many years. The training was hard. _What happens now will hinge on luck_. They don't need to speak the words to understand the message. It is an invitation.

Natasha doesn't need much momentum to kick off from the floor, running across the side of the wall, giving herself more height as she begins her assault. The other is prepared, and counters with knives. Her throws are excellent. Natasha dodges the first, hearing it lodge in the wall beneath her feet. She catches the second, and the third nicks her ear as she lands. She slashes, and the other sways, feet crossing serpentine. Natasha knows the other will be expecting a brutal attack in response, so she makes a different choice, tossing the knife so she catches the blade. She drives the handle up, underneath the other's jaw, leaving herself open. The blow to the abdomen is not damaging, but her body's response cripples her attack.

"Where were you stationed?" The other stretches her jaw as she speaks, assessing the injury. Minor bruising, at most a chipped tooth. Natasha is equally unconcerned.

"Kiev, at first. You?"

The other uses the knife planted in the wall to vault into the air. Natasha catches her leg, and they spin. Natasha slams the other into the wall as she tumbles to the floor, landing badly on her knee. She's expecting the gun and catches the other's arm before she can aim properly. They grapple, and Natasha groans from the wild kick to her kidney that lands as she empties the magazine. It clatters as it falls.

"Algeria," the other's voice is hot against Natasha's ear. "What is your mission?"

Natasha thrusts backwards, maneuvering her shoulders to sandwich the other between herself and the wall. There is an arm around her throat, digging the empty gun into her shoulder socket. She will have to dislocate it to slip out of the chokehold.

"I was an assassin. Covert. Until I defected." She bites on the wrist in front of her. The grip doesn't loosen, but the pain is a distraction, and Natasha uses it to tug one of her own knives from her belt, slashing at the other's abdomen. "Now I'm searching for Hydra’s secret keepers." Fabric tears behind her, and the other lets go. Natasha spins, deflecting the kick.

The other is bleeding, but the scars across her belly are more interesting. Caesarian. At least five years old. An emergency surgery, she must have been in the field. Probably ectopic, judging from the quick slashes made to her gut. Her body doesn't heal like Natasha's does.But like Natasha's, it cannot be rewritten. Blood drips on the floor. Natasha yanks her shoulder back into place. They assess one another.

"My body remembers," the other rasps, blood escaping through her fingers. "I am called Nefertiti."

"I was Natalia."

Other smiles. "I know." She resets her posture, forgetting the pain. It was not a lethal injury. "I have been sent here to kill you."

Natasha has never considered herself lucky. “Good luck," she assumes the other is the same.

Nefertiti smiles. "You as well." It did not need to be said, it was communicated in the way her body twists and prepares, but the sound of her voice shaping the words was a kindness. Natasha leaps and kicks, lets Nefertiti's fists land on her forearm as she attacks. She gains enough leverage to flip her, but Nefertiti follows, aiming a kick to her face. Dodging, she crashes into the wall, and plaster crumbles all around her. Nefertiti punches, and Natasha ducks, yanking her knee. Nefertiti allows herself to fall, grabbing Natasha's shoulders. They roll, unsheathing knives and burying them in flesh. When they separate, Natasha has a thin knife buried in her thigh, and one of her own is lodged in Nefertiti's shoulder. Their sweat smells sanguine, coating the air with their heat.

Nefertiti lifts her index finger. _Hold_.

"I am being told to abort."

Natasha plucks the knife from her thigh, and Nefertiti mimics her. They return each others weapons. There is no point in keeping them, there will be no useful evidence attached to them.

"Until we meet again, sister."

Natasha nods. Nefertiti kicks down one of the doors; she will be picked up. Natasha can hear the helicopter flying above them. Yes, there is the shattering window. And there will be a cleanup crew en route to deal with the blood. Natasha steps through the broken door, watching Nefertiti jump. It would be a waste of time to follow her; Natasha has neither the resources nor the patience. And the target is more important anyway.

  
She tears one of the sheets to make a bandage, and disguises the bloodstains underneath a coat she steals from the closet. Algeria. It might be worth looking there.


	14. Nerves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: Natasha tortures someone in this chapter.

The armor responds to her, just like Stark told her it would. "Brand spankin' new", he'd called it. She had ignored that, listening to the details about advanced weaponry and enhanced protective paneling. Filtered out the stray thoughts about previous decommissioned models, the pros and cons of starting over, and his interesting but irrelevant concerns about his own anxiety. "Do you need my help?" She'd ignored that too.

Standing on the roof, arm outstretched, Natasha summons the suit, waiting a mile away from the target. Out of sight, with the light pollution and smog, so far up no one will see the flashing lights as the flying parts assemble themselves over her body. Even though the armor has a reflective coating that should cloak it from a cursory glance, Natasha isn't willing to rely on inattentiveness or dumb luck. Tony had stressed the fact that it was a prototype, that the armor isn't as thick or as strong or as durable as he'd planned, that the weight is too heavy in the feet and too light in the shoulders, and she had listened to all of his concerns as she walked and ran and flew through his lab, filing them away should they become pertinent. All she needs to do is tear through a few layers of metal. And deflect a few bullets. And fly.

Tony had been confused. It didn't sound like the most subtle approach. He had expected her to laugh at that. If she wanted to be subtle, she wouldn't be borrowing a bright red robot. That's the _point_.

She flexes her fingers, and the machinery hums and whirrs around her muscles. Jarvis is a chipper, clear voice in her ear.

"All systems online, Agent Romanoff. I assume you're aware of the video cameras on the street and inside-"

"Got it."

She scans the city below her, vision enhanced by the screen floating in front of her. Seventeen operatives on the southwest corner, another ten on the east. Two escape vehicles for every operative, nineteen incendiary devices planted in the outer walls, anti-tank reinforcement on the interior ones, as well as acid bombs planted in the floors. There is one grizzled commander overseeing the operation- a retired hit man from the mob. Natasha looked him up, he has an impressive resume, though not one that impressed her. He will be intelligent enough to run before she has to deal with him. She has calculated these odds several times. With the armor deflecting their bullets, she should be able to dive in, tear open the wall, and retrieve the target with minimal personal damage.

Her leg throbs. Can't delay.

"Agent Romanoff, if you are going to be impersonating Mr. Stark, might I suggest-"

"Yolo," she drawls, cutting him off. She dives. As impersonations go, it's on-point.

She lets gravity carry her down, activating the flight mechanism at the last second. The effect of her retracted impact is immediate. Cars parked on the street shake and lurch, and a few of the operatives are thrown with the force of her aborted landing, a rush of air blasting through the glass windows of neighboring buildings. She floats, legs spread to accommodate the suit, deactivating the retro-reflective panels. When Natasha is sure they can all see her, she offers them a cocky salute in greeting, and waits for them to open fire.

They recover fast, and the bullets clatter against the armor like hornets against a windowpane. Natasha walks, swaying through her hips. One of the younger ones runs, gun firing , but he gets too close. She grabs his throat with her left hand, tossing him forwards, into the pit of operatives using the cover of a lopsided SUV to secure their vantage point.

"Agent Romanoff, might I direct your attention to-"

"The bazooka on the roof?"

"Yes ma'am."

She'd accounted for it in her initial plan, tracking the purchase through an unregistered gun show outside the city. It was sloppy, a barely concealed transaction. She can't abide by unsubtle arms dealers.

"Might I recommend the missiles in the gauntlet?"

Yes, yes you may, Jarvis.

She fires one at the wall in front of her, and another at the rooftop, then plucks the semi automatic from her waist and begins to pick off the guards on the north side of the building. She has until the dust settles before she needs to adopt Tony's careless swagger in earnest, to wear his identity as convenient as a glove. She uses the time to shoot, vaulting over vehicles in her path to get to the sidewalk. Natasha flips, circumventing gravity. The concrete rubble crumbles beneath her feet (heavy, yes, but not impossible to maneuver with the added support of the flight capabilities). Her landing secure, she kicks the first operative that tries to attack her, the metal toe of the suit dislocating his jaw as he falls backwards. Another onslaught of gunfire, from above, but the armor is still deflecting it, though she can hear the scratches and dents forming on its surface. Superficial. Not the point. She senses another attacker behind her, and swings her arm, connecting her elbow to his sternum. Returning the gun to her waist, out of sight, she fires with the palm of the suit, taking out three, four, seven. It's efficient, but imprecise. Property damage abounds. She looks around at it, and shrugs.

She turns back to the building; the target is still inside.

"Ready, Jarvis?"

"Of course, Agent Romanoff."

She steps through the wreckage she's made of the wall, adjusting her gait to account for the weight of the mechanics, the pressure-sensitive security protocols, and her impersonation of Tony. The guards inside are prepared for her. Bullet-proof vests, full combat gear. Their weapons are sturdier, and they've taken defensive positions behind well-fortified walls. Someone sets off one of the incendiary devices planted over her left shoulder. The explosion vibrates through her, but the suit absorbs the impact, and she doesn't lose her footing.

When she speaks, her voice alters, words clipped and heavily dosed with snark.

"Wanna run that by me again?"

Of course, they retaliate. Natasha flies, careful not to scrape the ceiling, vaulting over the traps in the floor. She fires as she moves, alternating between her left and right palms. The shoulder of the suit groans a little, but the damage, Jarvis assures her, is minimal. Not life-threatening. Bullets trail her back, causing her flight to stutter and jerk. She lands, feet scraping. Natasha shoots, blasting holes in the fortified walls. The gunfire coming from that angle ceases.

She rolls her shoulders. "How many more alive, Jarvis?"

"Seven, Agent Romanoff. Not counting the survivors on the roof." One of the seven tries to set off the acid bomb on her right; Natasha soars into the air, grabbing the back of his vest.

"And how far away are the reinforcements?" She flings the operative into one of the exterior walls, and it cracks with the impact.

"Several blocks. You have fifteen minutes, if traffic patterns remain unchanged."

She scoffs. "I'll be out it in five."

More gunfire, this time from an unmanned machine gun in the ceiling. Natasha runs, then slides, and the gun tracks her across the floor. The suit lines up her target for her, the camera inside the gun. She aims, and fires. Natasha is pleased at how used to the kickback from the gauntlet she's become.

"Watch my six, Jarvis."

"Of course, Agent Romanoff."

She stands, crouching over the weakest point in the wall. She penetrates it with the gloves, digging the mechanical fingers into the core. She can feel the damage the suit is sustaining, the electronic pulses trying to compensate as she crushes the circuitry. Ignoring it, Natasha twists, using her entire body to pull and tug and tear. The suit cracks and snaps around her arms, joints and plates splitting and clattering to the floor as they fracture from the exertion. With a groan, the wall shudders and breaks. Natasha tosses the pieces over her shoulder, ignoring the loud bang as it hits one of the incendiary devices in the wall.

"Very nice aim, Agent Romanoff."

Natasha chuckles to herself, wondering if Tony is aware he programmed his AI to encourage him every step of the way.

The target is inside. Old, yes, but he appears younger than he is. His file had only indicated a country of origin (Korea, prewar) and a security clearance (carte blanche, essentially). The lines around his brown eyes and forehead are thin, and his dark hair is streaked with gray instead of dominated by it. He's got his back to the wall, and a gun in his hands. And he doesn't point it at her, but at himself.

"Don't come any closer."

His English is accented, but comfortable. Quick, she slaps the gun away, and he shouts. Not enough. She forces the right hand of the suit to retract, grabbing the man's jaw with her left. She digs inside his mouth, finding the false tooth. She yanks, and blood coats her fingers as the man howls. She inspects the rest of his mouth, making sure there was only one cyanide capsule. Reviving him will not be convenient. Satisfied, she lets go of him, and he chokes, coughing up splatters of saliva and blood.

"Let's go for a ride."

She doesn't give him time to argue. Wrapping her arm around his waist, Natasha shields him with her ironclad body as she rises, cradling his neck before soaring out of the building, firing the repulsor rays as she makes her exit as explosive as possible. She ascends over the damage, monitoring the smoke her target will be inhaling unfiltered. He is screaming, and struggling, though a fall from this height would be lethal. He won't be able to slip out of the armor's grip. There are already helicopters circling, so she reactivates the cloaking mechanism, obscuring as much of her captive as possible.

She circles Hong Kong, making sure she's not being followed before she heads south. The safe house is remote and discrete, disguised as an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of a destitute village near the water. The farmhouse itself is in an area still heavily laden with land mines. No one goes near it. It's not a long flight, and the exaggerated speed of the suit is ideal. The air over the ocean is chilly, even in the spring. Natasha lands, blasting open the door. She doesn't give her captive time to regain his footing, shoving him inside.

He turns on her. There is blood trickling from his lips, and he's snarling. While the helmet is still on, she mirrors his expression, teeth bared and eyes vicious.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?! Whose wrath you've incurred, you sniveling, useless coward, you-"

She shrugs, deactivating the voice modulator.

"Who, me?"

The man cuts his tirade short.

"Who are you?"

She points at the chair behind him.

"Why don't you take a seat?"

Gulping, he does.

She strips out of the armor, tossing the helmet over her shoulder with an aggressive clatter. She grins like a shark at its prey, all teeth and hunger, noting the flicker of recognition when he sees her face. Natasha sheds the gauntlets and gloves, letting them slip through her fingers. The target winces as with every stuttering clang as the machinery hits the floor. Glossy laminate on top of cold concrete. Easier to clean. The target's eyes are tight, pupils straining against the thin, weedy light. He's more angry than afraid. Obviously not prepared for physical stress, if he's eliciting so many uncontrolled emotional responses. She would be suspicious of such transparency, if not for the presence of the nervous, twitching fingers, the heartbeat hammering out a frantic pulse in his neck, the acid sweat thickening on his skin. He's trying to hide his fear, poorly. Natasha tears away her breastplate, and the backplate falls from her shoulders. She steps out of the boots, approaching him with confident steps.

"I'm in the mood for a story. Know any good ones?"

He wets his cracked lips.

"You're the traitor."

She smiles, letting it spread with slow precision across her face.

"Oh yes."

His body jerks as he tries to stand; Natasha reacts, too fast for him. She grabs his wrists, slamming them down on the armrests of the chair, and cracks her forehead against his skull. He yelps, groaning as he settles back down, head lolling, expression lax. Disoriented, but no risk of immediate unconsciousness or death.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Natasha activates the recording device stored in a pouch underneath her shirt. The man is gasping, eyes closed. He'll hold, for a little while. She decides to start with his toes. Crippling damage, limit opportunities to escape. Pain receptors connected to other parts of the body will deliver extreme and thorough discomfort.

"I have nothing of use to you." He shakes his head. "I don't have the story you're looking for."

She crouches, looking up into his face. She grasps his chin, using a delicate touch. He opens his eyes.

"I'll be the judge of that."

His wealth of knowledge begins after the Korean Civil War. He has rehearsed this part of the story, though the way he speaks, Natasha suspects that he has not been given the opportunity to tell it out loud for some time. Three years of espionage. The details are vivid, and she can imagine it without difficulty. She has to break both his smallest toes before he will tell her whose side he was on.

"Why did Hydra have you record the stories of its enemies?" She rubs his ankle, applying a soothing amount of pressure. "If Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. in South Korea, why did it matter what was happening on the other side?'

He grits his teeth, holding back a whimper.

"If you don't know, I won't tell you."

He does, though. She is peeling back the nail on his big toe and he is howling when he begins. Enemies, yes. Hydra insinuated itself within S.H.I.E.L.D., making enemies of the Russians early on. The battlefield in Korea was a small one, but the victory was important to both sides, using the lives of the people on the ground as pawns in an international pissing contest. When the more colorful language appears, Natasha changes tactics. She asks him if his leaders care. If he thinks they're coming for him. She wipes her knife clean on his trousers, implying that she is finished with it (she's not, she never is), while she speaks softly, forcing a trickle of pity into her throat. Of course Hydra will kill him when they find out what he's told her, but she can keep him safe, yes, safe. It doesn't matter what's true. What matters is what she can make him believe. That's the point.

Alexander Pierce begins to feature prominently. He was the one who suggested the alliance, the failsafe for Project Insight. An Agent gone rogue, a traitor, the inspiration for the monopolization of power. Most of the details are not useful. Those chapters of her life are already an open book, she posted them all online, and she can remember all of this, should she choose to. This is not what she needs, but it is pieces of it.

"Allies."

He winces.

"Not yet."

She refocuses, staring into his eyes.

"Tell me."

He claims he doesn't know, but he has too many tells.

Natasha plunges a screwdriver into his hip, cracking into the bone. He writhes and squirms, but she twists it, coaxing, prodding, and holding him in place. His throat is hoarse and his voice is cracked when he starts begging. She pretends not to hear him at first, leveraging the edge of the tool grind down against his marrow, nerves screaming with every twitch and swivel. The handle grows sticky and wet.

He tells her: "Perip... peripisy-" mangling the pronunciation, she finishes the word for him, encouraging him, "Yes, good, the program was successful, tell me what it's being used for now." Test facilities in Haeju. Doctors employed by Room 39. Such a delicate procedure, on a large scale. Possible, of course it's possible, anything is possible.  

She makes him go backwards, out of a sense of obligation. "The Hunan Province, the massacre, the 0-8-4, tell me about that." Whispers, rumors. Very little to do with the Moranbong chapter, which is not surprising. Natasha doesn't hear anything new, but perhaps Skye will find something useful. Natasha will give her the transcript, with the bitching and moaning redacted.

He is tired. Dehydrated. Bleeding. Natasha leaves him, whimpering, to retrieve a bottle of water. She holds it to his lips, doling out carefully measured sips. Enough to regain lucidity, not enough to ease the soreness. She waits, his throat working as he swallows. There is sweat soaking through his shirt, cold now. He shivers. Exertion and seeping adrenaline are lowering his core temperature. Natasha allows it.

"You wanted to know..." he rasps. "About something else," he rasps. "Why."

She cocks an eyebrow.

"I'm multi-tasking."

His voice cracks. "There was a child. In the facility in Pripyat, just before the explosion. New to the program, it was part of their training. Follow orders, or do what their handlers wanted? Only one child failed. He did what was right, not what he was ordered to do. As a result, thousands of people died." His head lops forward, chin hitting his chest. "The consequences there led to the initiation of the program in Haeju. That is where the Moranbong chapter begins." Hs breath is coming in uneven ways when he looks up at her. "That is all I know of that chapter."

She grows more specific, now that his defenses have been broken. She asks pointed questions, about Operation Orphan. A training program. Fine. Training for what? Everything. Be more specific. Ballistics? Combat? Espionage? Command? Weapons development? Yes, his voice trembles, slick. All of it, all of it, yes. Some of it is familiar, some of his words reverberate in her body as she remembers being young, warm and dry and isolated and... no, that's wrong. It was cold in Russia. So much snow. And there were so many others there with her, though so few survived. He has a location. He has names, and code names. Not the purpose, because the mission head did not clarify, because even the mission head was not supposed to know. And who is the mission head? No, no, no, please, no more, but she pried open his leg anyway, dragging a blade through his femur, popping off his kneecap. He didn't have the answer.

He doesn't know where the Bolshoi is, has never encountered the person tasked with carrying that chapter. A dead end. A literal one. (She makes it literal).

Her body feels weak. There are aches all over. Her hands remember learning these skills, but her skin remembers something different. Endurance training, or resistance training. Cold and wet and dark, her body shivering because it had been losing blood and there had been a hose full of ice water and her eyes ached from the spotlight and then the dark. Her hands remember learning how to torture someone, how to send excruciating tremors through the nerves and her voice remembers the words to say to warp the mind and take away time, but her body remembers surviving it.

Natasha cleans her equipment, methodical, thorough, hands moving fast, but without the urgency of stress. Her heartbeat is calm. Her breath is smooth. The injuries she sustained during the capture are minor, healed. Even her leg, where Nefertiti gouged out a piece of her flesh, feels whole and fine. Natasha drinks what remains of the water, and eats half of her supply of nutrient bars. She discards her clothes and burns them. She stored a spare set in the safe house before she set it up. It's comfortable to put on clothes that aren't hard with dried blood. Gathering everything she needs, she dons the suit again, cloaked, stepping outside to fly.

When she's airborne, she sends a blast down to engulf the house, and the body inside it. It will be mistaken for a mine explosion. No evidence.

 

 


	15. Anosognosia

She sends the suit back to Tony. He should understand the gesture as one of gratitude, but just in case she instructs Jarvis to verbally express it. He doesn't mind taking the credit for dismantling a Hydra cell, and this way she won't have to expose her source.

Five days later, she is climbing up the shaft of an out-of-service elevator in an upscale Hong Kong hotel. The wind makes a shallow, barren sound as it whooshes through the hollow metal corridor. She grabs the unstable pipes and braces, the cold steel rough in her hands. It's not a fast ascent, with sparse anchors to support herself and a pervading dampness from the recent rainfall, she has to take cautious steps upward. Natasha reaches the top within her predicted timeframe, prying open a ventilation screen with minimal noise. The soldier, as expected, is already there. She listened to him making the climb hours ago. He's been silent ever since.

His clothing looks fresh, well-fitted, and better suited for the weather (waterproof, light weight, sufficient protection from the wind, dark colors, subtle). He nods in greeting, revealing no response at her timely appearance.

"I saw the explosions."

Her lips quirk. She inclines her head. He's lightly armed. One knife on his belt, another concealed in his boot, strapped to his ankle. One gun, and extra bullets, holstered over his shoulder. Natasha takes out a wipe and rinses her hands, removing the grit and blood left there by the climb.

"I think, by now, the entire world has seen the footage."

He shakes his head. "No, I watched. From a few blocks away. Lot of good vantage points in this city." He smiles. "I wanted to see what you would do."

He gestures to the edge of the roof, and sits down, leaning his back against the short railing. Natasha takes a seat beside him, legs stretched out in front of her. Their boots brush. Her lips twitch, and she doesn't try to discourage the smile that twists across her face.

"You like what you see?"

He snorts.

"It was a good imitation."

She hums. "You've seen Tony in action?"

The soldier shrugs, and the sleeve of his coat whispers against her arm.

"I was briefed."

She has nothing to say to that, and it seems that he is content to let the subject lie. Her own briefing on Tony was sparse. For all that he's led a very public life, there was too much information to sift through, and very little of it useful. After some consideration, Natasha acknowledges that any practical briefing on Tony had to come from her own observations, submitted to S.H.I.E.L.D. So, the soldier's understanding will be colored by her own bias. Requires more data. She dismisses the thought, for now.

The soldier is still solemn when he speaks again, his voice thin.

"Did you get what you needed?"

She clenches the inside of her cheek between her teeth. Still sore. Should have dealt with it while she was in New York. The suit was more important. 

"There's a trail. The network limits internal communication, and the storytellers themselves are isolated." The corner of her mouth turns up. "The next step is a visit to North Korea."

His breath escapes in a huff.

"Pain in the ass."

She clicks her tongue.

"No more than expected."

"Let me help?" He licks his lips when she stares at him head on and waits for him to speak. "I can. I'm not- I won't." He closes his mouth, before finally deciding on: "I can help you."

His eyebrows draw together, like he's trying to sort something out. Perhaps he's confused because there's no command that overrides his assistance. Or he might be surprised that he's chosen to offer. Maybe it's something he's been trained to do, look guileless and frail. Natasha remembers those skills, they feel so innate, living underneath the surface of her skin. Doesn't seem like a skill the Soldier would need, not with his build, it would take too much work to be believable. Steve would believe it, good decision, keeping them away from each other, but the Soldier will have been briefed on her, will know that she recognizes vulnerability for what it is: a tactic. He would know better than to use it.

Probably a true feeling then. Genuine reaction. Doesn't mean he's safe territory though, never does. There's no telling what he's reacting to. Not enough information.

His assistance would make the mission faster. She monitors the muscles in his face.

"If you're still sure I have to find what I'm looking for before I can take down Operation: Orphan-"

"Yes,” he rasps, and his voice is tight, constricted vocal chords. "Has to be. Incompatible." He closes his mouth again with a sharp click. He looks at her, looks away, and then forces himself to look back, eyes slowly rising up from the ground to her face. Not an indicator of attraction, there are none of the markers of arousal. The lines around his chin are tight, eyelashes low, jawline clenched. He doesn't want to prevent her investigation, so he must not know what she's really looking for. Can't know where it is. She's certain now that his orders would restrain him if he knew.

"All right." When she speaks, he sighs. "Do you want to help me because it will mean I can help you faster?"

He swallows. It's a struggle. She makes the question easier.

"Do you want to help me?"

His pupils go wide.

" _Yes_ ," he whispers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is on the shorter side. The update two weeks from now is really long, if that's any comfort. 
> 
> (It really shouldn't be).


	16. Suppressed

Getting into the country unnoticed is difficult, though Natasha anticipates more difficulty when they exit. She doesn't trust the Soldier, trust is a liability. But he functions in predictable ways on a mission. When they walk, she doesn't have to remind him to be quiet. Around people, she doesn't have to teach him how to blend in, to make himself unremarkable. When they swim, he needs breath less often than she does, and they maneuver between mines and nets and underneath the hulls of boats as they enter the heavily monitored waters.

Rising from the surf, she checks her gear, and knows without looking that the Soldier is doing the same. Everything is in order, and he gives her a nod to let her know that his equipment is all accounted for. Well-armed, in hostile territory. If he wants to try and kill her, now is the time to try.

He doesn't.

Natasha is pleased, and a little confused.

"The map said it would be a few miles east."

She unzips her wetsuit.

"If the map was right."

They've already had this conversation, but it is good to review facts. They collaborated, scouring the internet and the internal records of the Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean governments, piecing together as much information as they could about the current landscape. Satellite footage revealed a compound that most likely houses the information Natasha is looking for.

As well as a few dozen operatives, if the reports are correct.

"We're on schedule. Six hours until sunrise. No unforeseen difficulties."

She nods. The Soldier's demeanor doesn't alter as they both change into dry clothes. Natasha catalogues his scars, and she is sure that he is doing the same. The shot to her shoulder has healed completely. The muscles in his back are under strain from the arm, and there are old injuries on his legs and arm that were not entered into the report she acquired. Cause undetermined. Some combination of defensive and training injuries most likely explanation. Hers are similar, though not the same. More time was spent making her body attractive, erasing the injuries. She feels them, underneath the surface. And there were others, many, that were impossible to write over.

They abandon the instruments they no longer require, sending them away with a riptide, and start moving.

There is only one populated area between their location and the target. It is easy to avoid. Parched farmland, yielding little. The soil has been starved. Natasha's night-trained eyes can see that it gives way to rough little houses, unpaved streets. It is a small community, and does not require the excess of surveillance activity they observed in the satellite images.

They find coverage in trees and tall grass, walking on animal trails, without making footprints. They work in tandem, leading and following in shifts, erasing their tracks as they move forward. They don't need to discuss the routine.

When they arrive at the base, they both perform a full check walking the circuit and reconvening when their reconnaissance is complete. The hangar is stocked, and a small fleet of planes awaits them. There are more guards than indicated in their report, but they had prepared for this possibility. The patrolmen are armed, but half of them are focused on the inside of the building, suggesting that there are prisoners inside. They are working to prevent a potential breakout as much as deter trespassers. Easier to distract and confuse, if the teams are split.

"They have check-ins, every thirty minutes," he whispers.

Natasha frowns. "Those are long intervals."

The Soldier shrugs. "They're not rotating either. Easy to slip past them without setting off any alarms."

"All right," she murmurs. "The corridor on the west side is the most vulnerable, but the one on the southeast is closer to what we came here for." He raises an eyebrow at that, and she grins through the darkness. "No bars on the windows. Paperwork's not going to escape."

"Ah." He pauses. "You're sure it's hard data, and not a person we're looking for?"

After walking the perimeter, she is extremely sure. Her steps fell into familiar patterns, though the trees have grown taller and the season has changed. Natasha nods, and waits for him to catch up.

"Ladies' choice, then?" The Soldier swaps his confusion for a cocky grin.

She raises her brow.

"You'll follow my lead?"

He shrugs.

"You already know the way."

They wait until the searchlights turn away to scan the rest of the perimeter. Then, they run, crouching low to the ground, weapons in hand. Natasha leans up against the exterior wall, waiting for the Soldier to join her. He has the advantage of height. She squats, lifting him on her shoulder so he can check inside.

"All clear," he mutters.

He grabs the windowsill with his metal arm. One he's got a steady hold, Natasha leaps off the ground, landing with her hands on his shoulders. She flips her body over and forwards, her feet touching soundlessly down in front of the window. She grabs his flesh arm as he offers it, and together they have enough leverage to lift him up to join her.

Natasha picks the locks without a struggle, disabling the minimal security system before she opens the window. There isn't much moonlight (waxing cycle, cloudy night, they chose appropriately), but she doesn't need it to see. The grain of the wood beneath her hands is not strange, and she lifts herself inside without a sound. The Soldier follows her; she can track his presence, even in silence. His shadow blends with hers.

"What should I look for?"

Natasha circles the room, taking in the floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, the almost-unfamiliar languages, the dust, the smell of old paper, the hint of mold rising up from the loosely-tiled floor. Recently cleaned. The concentration of bleach is familiar. The smell requires further examination.

"Pripyat," she replies automatically. Of all the information she recovered from the Moranbong storyteller, that is the most connected to her own history. It is important that he still believes her past is what they came for. The Soldier furrows his brow, but he sifts through the files without further instruction. Good. The possibility that he will discover anything new is a low risk. _He did what was right, not what he was ordered to do. As a result, thousands of people died_. The rasp of the storyteller's voice punctuates the memory. Natasha doesn't remember boys in training with her, but that makes sense, they would have been segregated. "Anything related to a factory explosion." She crouches, rubbing the back of her wrist against the cool floor. Smooth. She absorbs the scent as much as she can. The Soldier watches her.

"All right?"

She rises.

"Data for later."

He nods. "Anything else?"

She shakes her head.

"I can get the rest."

After that, they move. Natasha judges the age of the information by the degree of decay of the paper. Some of it is hardened and crisp, but the more she searches, she finds more documents are written on sheets that feel lighter and thinner than silk. Ears open, they duck and hide when a guard passes, flashing a light through the doorway without precision. Routine check. Natasha scans the files, but there is nothing that explicitly mentions Operation: Orphan by name. Her fingers grow tacky with old grime as she sifts through the documents, absorbing everything. Her lips go through the motions of speech, forming the words without air. When she sees him, she notices that the Soldier has been taught to do the same.

There is documentation on Room 39 that Coulson will find useful.

And files with переписывать in prominent red letters. She finds something else there.

He'd tried to say it, hadn't he? The storyteller, his pronunciation mangled by his pain and unfamiliarity alike.

And then, there it is.

Cassandra. Alive, apparently. Natasha refuses to feel anything when she makes the discovery.

"Time." The Soldier glances up at her. "You have everything?"

She nods.

"Do you?"

The look he gives her is rough.

"Yes."

"Good." She draws her gun again. "Because getting out is going to be a bitch." Her fingers perform their checks on the weapon without prompting. "Don't forget anything, got it?"

He doesn't respond with the same levity. Spoilsport.

"Let's go."

Their retreat plan is precise. They will fly one of the planes parked outside as far as they can, parachute off it when they're out of sight, and leave it on autopilot, to be shot down by the North Korean military before it can leave the country. From there, they will have to walk, and then sneak out using a military vehicle. They have both memorized the regular delivery routes, and they both know when it will be safe to deviate from them. It is a reasonable plan, and accounts for any mishaps along the way. They have backups.

Natasha remembers. Failsafes.

The first three patrols go down before the guards realize that they are under attack. Natasha stabs one in the jugular, covering his mouth with his own hand. She leaves the body where it falls. The Soldier has grabbed one by the throat, and the other he shoots in the head. The sound is muffled, but it echoes in the unadorned concrete. When the sound of backup arriving bears down on them, he defers to her.

"Left." Her voice is sure, her feet leading the way. "I can hear three more up ahead."

"I'll get the ones on our six."

The sounds of his efficient disposal chase her. Natasha grabs the gun of the closest man, shoving her shoulders against his collarbone and pointing it at the other two. She slams her head backwards into his nose, and the gun slips from his hand. She delivers more precise shots, then leaps into the air, vaulting herself off the wall as another two stream into the wide corridor. She lands on one man's shoulders, throttling him with her thighs, bending over so he can't slam her head against the ceiling. It strains his back as he struggles, making his aim imprecise. The other man is shot between the eyes as he tries to aim at her. The man underneath her crumbles, and Natasha somersaults off him, dodging a stray bullet she sees coming for her in her periphery.

She glances back at the Soldier. With a snarl, he tears the arm of the shooter from its socket, and the spray of blood paints the walls. The man, screaming, crumbles to his knees. The Soldier kicks him in the face, breaking his neck. The screams are cut off instantly.

"I shouldn't have let that happen," he glares.

She shrugs.

"Shit happens."

He's still glowering at the corpse.

"You coming?"

His eyes snap up to meet hers.

"Do you hear that?"

Rumbling. She does. "Going to have to move faster, then." The Soldier nods. He leaps over the bodies, grasping her arm briefly as they run together. Heavier guns, of course. The building is well-equipped. The fastest route to the hangar is through the middle of the building. The courtyard. Square and barren. She can feel the cold concrete through her boots. There's little coverage from the firefight that meets them there. The Soldier shoves her behind a column seconds before the shots are fired. Bullets ricochet off his metal arm, and one lands in his thigh for his trouble. He doesn't wince.

Natasha gestures to the tanks to their left. He nods.

He takes aim, providing cover for her as she darts out, reaching the gasoline storage quickly and with minor injuries (three bullets graze her body in non-lethal areas). With her right hand, she picks off the nearest attackers, shooting her targets with minimal visual confirmation. She can hear the Soldier doing the same over her shoulder, shooting through walls when he has to. All of his shorts are deadly. In her left hand, she builds the detonator.

She doesn't give the Soldier any warning. There's no time. She merely runs, and he joins her, reloading while she fires at the moving shadows ahead of them. Their assailants fall, and she can hear the panic behind her, but they won't be able to stop the reaction in time. On schedule, the tank explodes.

The Soldier gets ahead of her, barreling up a narrow flight of stairs, clearing a path towards the hangar. The secondary explosion singes her skin, and the deafening sound drowns out the howls coming from the walls. Her clothing fuses with her skin as it melts, and she keeps running.

First, Natasha sees the antiaircraft cannon, and knows she needs to disable it. There are more troops on the roof. The Soldier is already disposing of them, his hands bloody. There's a new bullet wound in his thigh, deep, but he's elected to ignore it. Natasha grapples with the first guards in her path. She disarms one with a high kick, breaking his wrist when she makes contact. His gun sails over his head, falling off the roof. While he is distracted by her minor application of pain, Natasha crouches, making herself a smaller target for the idiot waving his gun around, trying to shoot her without taking proper aim. She uses the momentum of the soldier charging at her, catching his abdomen, sending him careening over her head as she rises. The soldiers collide, and she shoots them before either one can recover. There are lights flashing all around them. Natasha can see the Soldier, not struggling as he combats the fresh guards following them up the stairs.

She plucks a gun from one of the corpses, shooting seven more guards as she heads for the cannon. It's not a complex design. Five men are taking cover behind a barricade nearby, shooting blindly at her. She darts in between their bullets, and realizes that she is going to fall. The ledge is too close, and there is another soldier on her heels. Natasha grabs a rope from her belt and wraps a lasso around the cannon as she runs past. She can use her momentum to drag it off the roof. When she reaches the edge, she will stop, she will spin, and she will let the weight of the attack pull her down, and the leverage will be enough to drag the canon down after them. She will have to be quick, maneuver around the canon to sustain minimal damage when she lands, and she has already reached the edge...

She stops. She spins. The attack arrives as anticipated. She aims the man's gun away from her, over her head, unbalancing him, and she drags him, and his weight does the rest as he falls, and she's going to follow him-

A cold metal arm wraps around her ankle. The Soldier pulls her backwards, and she lands on her feet, body jerking. The remaining guards are dead. Natasha looks at the Soldier. He shrugs.

"What about the canon?"

The Soldier glares at it. He grabs the barrel in his metal hand and crushes it.

"What about it?"

She snorts.

"Let's get out, before reinforcements arrive."

He nods. They step cautiously, staying out of the light, but the hangar is unguarded. Most likely because all of the guards are occupied: dead, or hiding, dealing with the fire that is quickly consuming the prison, or running from the wreckage. Natasha abandons the weapons she'd borrowed from their attackers, grabbing an extra case of fuel. Above her, the propeller of a plane roars to life. The Soldier is leaning out of the cockpit, and the motor is running. Natasha does a last check of the perimeter and an assessment of their supplies before she accepts his hand. The place is burning. Smoke is filling the sky. The Soldier lifts her into the plane, flying without any direction. It's an older model, but fast, and lighter than the others. Natasha approves of the choice.

They pierce through the veil of smoke and soar up to meet the sky. They ascend slowly, cautious of the way dramatic changes in pressure affect their bodies. Natasha consults her internal compass, using the fading stars for guidance, but they are flying in the direction they'd planned.

The plane hums underneath her. Natasha locks her eyes ahead and focuses on the scent she impressed against her wrist. Cleanser, the kind that will cut through bodily fluids. Like acid, leaving nothing behind. It reminds her of sturdy sheets against her cheek, and a cold, solid floor supporting her bare toes as they scraped past short, slender bed frames.

"Agent?" The Soldier's voice rumbles over the sound of the plane.

She refocuses. They still have a few miles left to fly.

"Have we been spotted?"

"No." He grunts. "They won't."

She raises her eyebrow, then remembers he can't see her. "You sure? You don't sound sure. Maybe you want to expand on that."

His lips curl, she sees the reflection in the control panel.

"We should go back to DC."

She hadn't planned on staying in his company for much longer. There's not much point.

"I left something there. It's important." He chews on the inside of his cheek. "I left his shield."

Natasha reaches underneath her seat for her pack, taking out their parachutes. She passes one to the Soldier, and he adjusts the straps as he wraps them around his chest and shoulders.

"Why?" She shouts over the sound of the wind as he opens the cockpit.

"I was too injured, when I fell. I wanted to." He grimaces as he enters the last command sequence for the plane. Natasha watches his fingers moving across the screen. The plane will be shot down before it crosses the border. "After I saw you," his voice carries back to her, "the first time. You said he didn't want me dead." He nods, and she jumps. He follows her, dropping through the air above her. For a few moments, the only sound is the air as it passes by her. He opens his parachute first, and as soon as he's safely out of range, Natasha does the same. They float to the ground. The landing is jarring, shakes through her entire body. Behind her, the fabric of the Soldiers' parachute is fluttering. He connects to the ground with a dull thud.

"I remembered it. It belongs to him." He discards the straps, loosening himself from the tangled material. "It was made for him, I know that." His lips part before he speaks. "Hydra shouldn't have it."

Natasha nods, because she agrees. The shield is a useful weapon, and it would be difficult to replicate. Rogers most likely feels a sentimental attachment to it as well. Vibranium is also rare. It is possible now to replicate it, but the process is difficult. That shield survived the Second World War, a deep freeze in the arctic, and Captain Rogers himself.

"And you left it in DC?"

"Hidden." He grins. "Glad I gave you the tracking chip when I did." The grin is a wild one, a memory of wicked misbehavior. "The Smithsonian had a replica."

Her mouth twists.

"Had."

He chuckles.

"I doubt anyone will look for it there."

"Probably not." She releases her smile. "All right. We can both go back there." She considers it. "I know somewhere safe. If you want to rest. Before you make your report."

He stiffens.

"I don't want to."

His body is speaking to her. Shoulders are a stiff, stubborn line. Pupils wide. His eyes look dark and shaded over in the early dawn light. His legs are wide apart, feet digging into the loamy ground. He's angry and he's scared. And he's trying to hide it all behind his strength, metal arm hovering in front of his body like a shield. Her well-trained eye observes a glimmer at the corner of his tear ducts, the tremor in his stomach muscles, the scent of an adrenal response tainting his sweat.

"Soldier?"

"I will." the language slips away. He becomes a calm, moving machine again. It is necessary.

She watches him, wary, as he takes the lead, stepping around her, towards the horizon. He glances back at her over his shoulder. "Sorry." A sense of the old smile returns. "I thought you knew."

"I did." She had suspected, because it was prudent to suspect. He has a report to make, and someone to report to. There is no reason to feel disappointed, but his responses indicate that he expects her to be.

She starts planning their route to DC. They'll have to wash off the blood.

 


	17. Vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now with 100% more cultural references, and also an invasion of Clint's privacy.

This is not a primary residence, but it has traces of familiarity in every corner. Clint offered his place to her years ago, and gave her a key when she deferred. She has not seen the interior until now. She knows there is a beige rug (fibers stuck to the back of his calves that smell like carpet cleaner), and she is not surprised that it is one of the highest corners of the building (archers like to roost). There are smoke and carbon monoxide detectors with strobe lights instead of sirens. Natasha's not sure what to make of all the personal touches. There are dog-eared books on the shelf across from the front door. _My Antonia_ is displayed prominently. She can tell that he's read _Goodbye, Chunky Rice_ and _Bone_ numerous times, and that he hasn't cracked the cookbooks on the bottom shelf. The titles don't resonate at all for her.

The Soldier scans all the rooms with methodical grace, and she mirrors him. After the full circuit, they end up in the kitchen, like synchronized swimmers, satisfied with their reconnaissance. Natasha begins to open cupboards, selecting from the array of non-perishable goods, making reasonable predictions about what will and will not be missed. The Soldier watches, shifting his weight.

"Sit, if you want to."

He does, choosing one of the plush couches in the center of the open floor plan. He sighs when he leans back into the gently worn cushions. The weight of the arm must be straining his muscles.

"This is a nice place," he says. His tone is light in a way that doesn't match his expression, and she assumes he's only saying what he knows house guests are expected to say.

"It's not mine. A gentleman gave me his room key."

The Soldier's expression turns sour.

"Why did he do that."

She shrugs. "Not for sex. At least, if that's why he did it, he was disappointed." She feels her brow creasing and releases the tension; lines there would be unflattering, would reflect her age, she knows this. "He's on my team, you know." She points at a photo resting on a nearby table. "You've been briefed on all of them." She shakes her head, opening a can of tuna. "Sometimes people do things just to be kind."

The Soldier rolls his eyes, and she nods in agreement. The closest she's ever come to that kind of sentimentality is the joke or two she's told Rogers, and she'd done that to make him smile. It cost her nothing, and it was an optimal response.

The Soldier watches her.

"Pepper. Use a lot of pepper. It tastes good."

She doesn't care how it tastes, so she does what he asks before placing the bowl of tuna in the microwave. 

She hasn't spoken to Clint in forty-six days. They don't have a standing appointment, too easy to trace, too predictable, but they usually don't go for more than a week. It has been more than a month. It is early morning in Pakistan. Natasha wonders if he's acquired a phone that is compatible with his hearing aid. He must have, by now.

She scoops lumps of food onto two plates, distributing more on the one she hands to the Soldier. He pokes it with his flesh fingers.

“Eat it.”

His nose crinkles. “It’s hot.”

“It’s fish. You’re not supposed to eat it cold." She picks some up, barely chewing before she swallows it. "Eat.”

He mimics her. It doesn't take either of them long to complete the food. They will both need more, but it has to be done slowly, over-eating will make them both sick, after going so long on sparse supplies. Natasha runs her fingers through her hair. It's thin and singed at the ends. It was easy to hide, tucked underneath the neck of her collar, but she will have to do something about it. She stands, reaching for the remote. The television whurrs to life, muted, the closed captioning turned on instead.

Footage of Tony is replaying. Natasha doesn't understand why he encourages the journalists. It must be inconvenient to have them following him around constantly, taking photographs and asking questions. She's deterred them whenever possible, making herself as boring and unapproachable as she can. She leaves the remote near the Soldier, heading for the closet where she found towels during her initial sweep of the apartment.

"All right Agent?"

"Natasha," she corrects him, making her eyes wide. "I feel like we're at that point, you know?"

The Soldier shrugs.

"James, then."

She nods, heading for the back of the apartment, where the shower is tucked away.

"Ugh," he groans. "This Tony reminds me of this guy Stark, I used to know."

Natasha feels her lips curling.

"Must be the family resemblance," she says over her shoulder. 

She hangs the towel on the handle of the shower door, and removes her clothes. She disarms, too, though she keeps all of her knives within her reach. The bandage on her shoulders floats into the garbage. The scent on her wrist has mostly evaporated, or been covered up by the natural scents of sweat and city air. But she just needs a sense of it, before it's gone completely.

James is occupied on the couch. She has time. She inhales. 

The floor was cold, and no good for sleeping on. The beds were preferable, and they came with a pair of eyes across from her. Natasha called her Alexa. This was before names. She turns on the water, adjusting the stream for her sensitive skin. Natasha doesn't remember the girl's number, which means she probably never knew it. She was thin, and small, one of the younger ones. She got chilblains, and Natasha shared her ration of fatty lotion with her. She remembers the texture of it, rubbery and thick and sticky in her palms. The girl's eyes were wide when she accepted the gift, and let Natasha rub the oil into her hands and feet. the skin cleared up enough that Alexa didn't have to go to medical.

They gravitated towards each other, during trials. They thought they were being subtle about it. Natasha was sure to grab Alexa by the neck when the handlers were watching. She shoved her into a wall, and let her struggle, clawing at her arm. Natasha felt the girl's fingernails scoring deep red marks into her wrists. Her grip was strong, and Alexa choked, and her arms were too short to reach Natasha's neck or face, and she wasn't strong enough to get away. She learned, though. When their trainers called an end to the melee, they explained how she allowed herself to get caught in an untenable position.

During the next round of trials, Alexa used her height to her advantage, staying out of Natasha's periphery. She stabbed her in the thigh.

Natasha touches the skin where the old wound lives, a tight scar underneath a veneer of fresh, clean skin.

Often, too many times, they assisted one another. Natasha distracted the bigger girls, taking them on so Alexa wasn't overwhelmed by them. She got stronger. She loses, which mans her meals were smaller and her injuries were larger, but she got stronger. And Alexa, she became clever. Still so small, with her frail little bones and her eyes, so big in her little face, but she learned to think. While the other girls ran headfirst into the fray, she hung back. She stole weapons from sheathes while their owners were distracted, instead of grappling for them at the outset. She didn't win any trials either, but her injuries were superficial.

Natasha rubs soap into her breasts, disguising her investigation out of habit. There, in the center of her ribcage, there’s a tight pinch when she presses against the scar, and her breath threatens to choke her. The shower is still running hot. But her memory is winter.

They were called to trial alone.

Awake before the others, they were guided from their beds, cold concrete underneath their bare toes. The courtyard was all set up for them, with obstacles and boundaries built to simulate the field, and weapons scattered across the floor.

Natasha understood before Alexa did.

Natasha rinses her hands, letting the water trickle between them, letting the scent fade from her body, but it's intoxicated her, filling her, overflowing like the water in her cupped hands.

The weapons were all laid out, as they usually were. Natasha had become competent at improvising with them. She swooped in, attacking Alexa with a flurry of easy assaults. They were predictable, but she was fast enough that Alexa didn't have time to assail her in response. She could only defend. Natasha bent to the floor, aiming a low kick to unbalance her, picking up a knife as she did so. Alexa recovered, and she didn't see the knife. Natasha stashed it in the back of her pants when she distracted Alexa with a well-timed uppercut.

There was still no clear winner. Alexa was beginning to understand.

She let Natasha's next kick propel her further backwards. This gave her time to recover, time to plan her next move. She elected to run. Not a bad move. Alexa was faster, because she was smaller and more agile. Natasha's muscles were conditioned to absorb blows, and to deliver them. Natasha followed, and Alexa used their environment to hinder her. She pulled down the unstable walls, and Natasha was suddenly fighting an avalanche of concrete. Not heavy enough to hurt her, but the rubble is cold, and it hurt in a way she couldn't explain. She assumed it was the adrenaline confusing her responses. She has been told that can happen.

Alexa was ready for her when Natasha recovered; she'd armed herself, and threw some of the smaller knives. Her aim was good. Natasha ducked and weaved, and Alexa while didn't manage to hit her, the assault did slow her down. And Alexa looked hopeful. Perhaps she just needed to prove her worth, demonstrate her ability beyond the cold calculation. She was capable of hot brutality, of aggression and initiative. And Natasha knew this. Just as she knew it was already too late.

Natasha swerved out of the way of one of the knives, and it lodged itself in the ground at her feet. Crouching to avoid another throw, she plucked it from the ground, and she flung herself at Alexa. The other girl stabbed her, between her ribs, but the cut was shallow and Natasha could ignore it. They rolled, and Natasha aimed at Alexa’s throat. She knew she could overpower Alexa; the angle she had was not the best, but she knew, with time, she could overpower her. Alexa knew it too. Their trainers also knew, just as they knew that Alexa had, once again, found herself in an untenable position. She was using both hands to hold back Natasha’s one; both her legs were pinned, and she was too small to gain enough leverage to escape. If she could get one leg out- but she couldn't. It was not a matter of skill. She was not strong in that way.

And there was one breathless moment, where they both dared to hope, when hope was the most futile of all, that their trainers will call an end.

They did not. And Alexa understood.

Natasha reached for the knife at her back, and plunged it into Alexa’s stomach. "You fought hard," she whispered to the girl.

The death was slow, and Alexa’s entire body convulsed. Her arms shook, from pain, and from the exertion required to keep Natasha from ending it easily. She could have let go, she could have allowed Natasha’s final gift be a quick, simple death. A knife to the neck. But no, they had been trained otherwise. Complete the mission. Even if you are dead, if you have any breaths left, you will complete the mission. Alexa was dead, there was no recovery, not once the acid in her stomach began leaking into her gut and poisoning the rest of her organs. It must have burned, Natasha thinks.

"And now your pain is over." They stared into each other’s eyes, and Natasha waited, politely, as Alexa died.

Moments after she stopped breathing, their handlers called an end.

“Do you understand the purpose of this trial?”

Natasha stood. There was still a knife between her ribs.

“I do.”

“Will you make this mistake again?”

She didn't shake.

“I will not.”

She understood that there would be no second warnings. The smell of the cleaner as they erased Alexa’s body permeated every nerve. After every rewrite, the lesson remained.

Natasha turns off the water. She reaches for her weapons first, and then the towel she left for herself, covering up as she searches Clint’s cabinets. He’s stored a pair of hair clippers and a small hand mirror over the bathroom sink. She examines them. They’re clean and well-maintained. She plugs them in. Wrapped in a towel, Natasha lifts the mirror, trying to find an angle that will allow her to use the clippers without accidentally chopping off her own neck, or whatever the hyperbole is. It’s proving difficult. Seeing as she’s not a yoga master. Sambo, definitely. Krav maga, sure. Capoeira, probably. But the first choice of soccer moms everywhere? Yoga and booty boot camp. Natasha rolls her eyes at her reflection in the mirrored bathroom cabinet.

James grunts from the living room.

“What?”

“Your eyes will get stuck that way if you keep doing that.”

She bites the inside of her cheek instead.

“Come out here.”

“The light’s better in here,” she calls back.

James grunts.

“Not for me.”

She glances down at the clippers. Not especially sharp, even without the guard. Could be a deadly blade, but it would be a pain in the ass. Far more effective as a blunt trauma weapon. Heavy and sturdy. The cord is thick, easy to strangle someone with. It probably wouldn’t even hurt that much. The clippers would be difficult to clean, with so many grooves, but the entire machine could be boiled in vinegar. The entire process would take less than fifteen minutes (twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds, to be precise), as long as the target wasn’t equipped to struggle. She is always equipped to struggle. Not an ideal weapon, no, but a competent one.

In the living room, James coughs.

Natasha steps out of the bathroom, light flowing out behind her. The light from the television flickers, though there’s nothing on, just a blank, dark screen. She can hear it humming. James is staring at it, not transfixed, just calm. His right hand is open in his lap, palm up, waiting for her. She places the clippers there and he grasps them with a loose, stable grip. She finds an outlet behind the sofa, and then sits down in front of him, settling between his knees, facing the television. The sound is numbing and dull, but not bad.

She hears the clippers behind her, and remains still and yielding.

“Your shoulder’s still hot.”

She doesn’t shrug; instead she includes the gesture in the lilt of her voice.

“Burns will do that. It'll heal.”

He makes another rough sound in his throat, and the clippers glide through her hair, crossing over her right temple and past her ear, down to her neck. He uses his left hand, the metal one, to gently brush away the excess hair, a supple leather glove smooth against her tender skin. He hums, tuneless and idle, and the sound reverberates down to her collarbone. He touches her chin when he needs her to shift, a gentle, suggestive nudge. This way, and that, up a little. Hair trickles down her spine.

“In my day,” his voice is thick, “they would have said you look like a boy.”

He means her hair. She watches him in their reflection in the television; his eyes flicker, brighter than the prosthetic, glinting in the light from the bathroom, from the street lamps glowering in the space between the curtain and the windowsill.

“They say that in my day, too.” She frowns, just a little. “Some things never change.”

His breath tumbles out in what might have been a laugh if it weren’t so hollow.

“It suits you.”

She can’t shrug, so she expresses it with her voice.

“It’ll make me a harder mark to find.” As she speaks, James pauses running his fingers through her hair. “Anyone looking for me will be going by outdated photos.”

She hears him swallow.

“There’s someone else following you?”

A small laugh catches in the roof of her mouth.

“Someone else you don’t know about, you mean?”

He closes his hand down on her shoulder, she sees it coming in his image on the screen before it happens, and her entire body is ready to move.

“I mean,” he lets go of her almost instantly. She doesn’t turn around, but she watches his reflection. “I mean,” he says again, “is there someone making you not safe?”

She gestures at her hair.

“Are you done?”

He nods. Natasha stands, swiping away traces of hair. They’ll have to clean the apartment very carefully if they want to remove all the traces of themselves. She turns and looks down at James. He’s staring at her abdomen, as if he can see the bullet wound he put in her stomach through the thick towel. His expression is difficult to read from this angle, the light is unclear and she can only see three quarters of his face, but she doesn’t need the whole picture. Angry. His face is angry.

“I’m never safe.” The way his eyes flicker, she knows she is required to expand. “I was trained to be a spy when I was a little girl. Then, I defected. And I just released information about every assassination I executed or prevented over the last two decades. I'd be surprised if someone didn't contact a kill order for me.” She crouches in front of him, looking at his entire face. “James.” She whispers, modulating her tone. “It’s all right. Because along the way, I got very good at killing people before they killed me. You know how good I am.”

He scoffs, but his lips are curling, like a smile, as he leans back into the couch.

“You left hook could use some work.”

She smirks.

“Everyone’s left hook could use some work, compared to yours.” She stands again. “So. It’s not really a big deal. someone took out a hit on me. It happens. I’m used to it.”

She steps around the couch, going to the kitchen to retrieve her bag. There are clean clothes, and dressings for her shoulder, though she doesn’t think she needs them. It’s been a few days, and even though the skin is hot, she can feel the itch of it healing underneath. 

She hears him over her shoulder.

“I wish you didn’t have to be.”

Natasha doesn’t have an opinion on the subject. She dresses. He doesn’t look. Trained to ignore such things.

“Want to swap stories?”

His eyebrows draw tight together. She remembers a similar expression on her face when she first learned the phrase. Clint was dipping french fries in mayonnaise, she has asked him about the scar on his wrist, and he wanted to learn more about her. It had been an offer, yours for mine. It was unclear then what parts of her were secret and what were useful for discussion, so she had changed the subject, told him she liked french fries better that way. He’d made a face, open mouth in a circle, eyes wide open, and his voice had been laughing. “No take backs,” he’d said. “Everyone else thinks it’s gross.”

“It means, don’t you want to know what I learned? What the mission was for?”

James sucks his cheeks in between his teeth.

“No.”

She watches him. He takes a quick breath, exhaling through his nose.

“I’ll tell you what I learned. But don’t tell me what you know.”

Her neck feels tight. She’s gritting her teeth. Dressed in warm, dry clothes, she comes back into the living area. She stands with her legs an inch further apart than the width of her shoulders, arms crossed. It gives her the appearance of sturdiness.

“Recite.”

He does.

She knows some of it. A little boy in Pripyat, yes, she knows all of this. He had a mission. He failed. There was a cancellation, a reset for the entire program, a fresh start in Haeju. That facility is gone now; they left it burning in flames behind them. Better off this way.

The last known location of the boy, the failed project, is a satellite base in Turkey. She remembers this base. It was called a ward. She saw it fifteen years ago, and the temperature had been described as sweltering. A dead end. James keeps talking, though. She listens to the tremor in his voice, the struggle, to render the information or to release it is unclear. She has plenty of data now, she should be able to decipher him. But he keeps changing, there are too many alterations and variables when he’s not with her. It makes reading him difficult.

James tells her about the boy, whose file ends in 1986. Bad luck. He should have obeyed protocol, accepted the mission. Instead, he tried to intuit what his handlers might really want. Natasha clearly understands his mistake. Handlers aren’t supposed to be knowable. They are supposed to be obeyed. They will make arbitrary rules and break them without warning just to demonstrate this point. Handlers are not like marks or assets. They are not to be predicted. They cannot be used and manipulated and conquered like the people outside. They are handlers. They are barely people at all. Natasha remembers this like a stone in her spine, hard and sharp and dragging pain through her nervous system. If the boy’s file ends in 1986, it is possible he died earlier.

“More details, James. You can do it.”

A tremor goes through his face.

“His name. Is a name useful?”

She nods. He sighs.

“Alexei Shostakov.”

She hums. She knows the name, knows the flicker of sentimentality she feels in the corner of her right eye is a simulation, it is not important. She does not even need to hide it, because the emotion does not cross her face. That is how insignificant it is.

“Good. Is there anything else you can tell me.”

He looks nauseated.

“No.”

“All right.” She crosses to the balcony. In the open apartment, it’s the closest she can get to privacy. “If you don’t want to hear what I found out, I suggest you ignore the phone call I’m about to make.”

He nods, standing. “Tell me later.” He fiddles with the television remote for a moment before giving up, tossing it back onto the couch. Natasha walks outside and closes the glass door behind her. Inside, James is putting water on the stovetop to boil. It will give him a sound to concentrate on. She dials the number she’d memorized after the battle in New York, using the last burner phone. He picks up after the third ring, and his voice is sedate and bedraggled. Of course, early bedtime, reliable routine, she had anticipated this, but the call is a priority.

“Hello?”

“Call me Clint, audibly and often.”

Banner groans.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I assume you saw the wreckage in DC?”

Banner snorts.

“Yes. Very impressive Clint.”

Good. He’s being vague. She is always pleased when she tests Banner’s aptitude for espionage.

“I just found out there’s a sequel.”

She watches James, but he appears to be genuinely ignoring her. In New York, Banner grunts.

“And you’re telling me this, for some very good reason, good enough to wake me up for, which I’m sure you’ll share with me, any minute now…”

He does an excellent impression of a person disgruntled by an interruption of a habitual sleep pattern.

“From what I can tell, Hydra allied itself with their enemies in Russia before the helicarriers went down. It’s a fail safe, a way to use Project Insight’s technology even though the original plan fell through.”

Banner gulps.

“Clint. What.”

After another scan of James, Natasha closes her eyes, trying to predict what part of the conversation is confusing for Banner. Of course. He’s not as well-versed in the Cold War as she is. He’s not that kind of expert.

“You’re in the Tower, so Tony can corroborate what I’m about to tell you. When the war ended, Nazi scientists joined the Allies, plenty of them were hired by the U.S. government to-”

“Yeah Clint, I know that, I’m not stupid.”

She chuckles.

“Well, they brought their ideals with them. Obviously. I imagine that’s how Hydra got started. After a few years, it would have been easy for them to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Probably without even trying,” Banner agrees.

“Right. Fast forward a few years, during the Cold War, whose side do you think they were on?”

Bruce is silent. She keeps talking.

“So, while Kennedy and Krushchev thought they were the ones with their fingers hovering over the kill switch, Hydra and Department X were staging a covert war for world domination.”

Banner is trying hard not to sound skeptical, but she can tell he’s wary.

“Sure.”

“You can look it up yourself. Thanks to me, you can Google it. It’s probably fascinating. I hear it gets at least a million hits every six hours.”

Banner is groaning, rolling over, his sheets dragging across the speaker in his phone.

“And why are you telling me this? Was I the only one that picked up? Am I a chump right now?”

Natasha snickers, opening her eyes. Inside, James is scanning the bookshelves, his eyes flickering over the titles. The Dragonlance series seems to have caught his interest. She watches him through the window.

“What’s important is what they’re planning now. Department X had a program, called переписывать. They used it to write over memories, change them.” She pauses, but Banner’s indrawn breath doesn’t precede words. “I’m reasonably certain the fallback plan was to use the Insight technology to acquire targets for a large-scale rewrite. Alter the attitudes of targets by revising their memories, instead of shooting them down.”

Banner takes another slow breath.

“I… Clint. If what you’re saying is… have you considered-”

She can predict the outcome of his sentence easily enough. He is kind, and there is concern all over his tone.

“I know I have implanted memories. You don’t need to say it kindly. Or at all. Considering your half of this conversation is being monitored.”

Banner speaks like he’s giving condolences.

“It might not even be certain-”

“Everything is certain, except the things I don’t know.” James is pulling out one of the books, flipping through the pages. “I remember shootings I wasn’t responsible for and a father I never had, a husband who died before I was born, and that a mistake of mine caused the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown.” She shakes her head. “I was born in 1984. Explain that. If those memories weren’t implanted, that's one heck of a continuity error.”

Banner is quiet. He’s waiting. Of course he is. He complains when Tony tries to use him as a sounding board, forces himself to fall asleep during their sessions, but so often he is patient and expects resolutions to problems that are not problems. She trusts him. But she resents him for leaving so many spaces open for her to fill. She grits her teeth and does it anyway.

“It’s something they used to do.” She shrugs, and forces the movement to be part of her voice. “They wouldn’t make up their own stories, they’d just reuse the files from other assets. I expect they will do something similar to the Insight targets.”

Banner sighs.

“Look, Clint, I don’t know what you expect me to do here, I’m not… I’m not an expert in this. I’m-”

“Banner. I don’t trust any of the other experts I know. I definitely don’t trust any of the ones responsible for unraveling this kind of technology in the first place, because it’s very likely that they had a hand in building it.” She pauses. “I can trust you.” She makes herself smile, because it adjusts the shape of her vocal chords. “I’ll take the Hulk over Hydra any day.”

Banner makes a grumbly noise in the back of his throat.

“Can I talk to Tony about this?”

“Sure. Have a blast.” She pauses. "Stay under the radar, come up with a way to jam the signal. I can do the rest."

"Are you sure?"

"When am I not sure?" The sound of Bruce's quiet apartment is her answer. "Maria Hill found a way to disable it in DC. I can track her down and-"

"No need." Banner clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Look. I have a meeting with our friend Maria in a few hours. Is there anything else you feel the need to tell me?"

She grins.

"I'm proud of you, Dr. Banner. You're being wily."

Banner sighs.

“All right. I’ll see what we can come up with.”

“I expect great things.”

Banner hangs up. Natasha dismantles the phone, crushing the pieces in her hand. By the bookshelf, James is scowling. Natasha closes the balcony door behind her, and it snaps shut. Clint hadn't left it locked, so she doesn't either. A glass door won't do much to keep anyone out as it is, locked or no.

"Find something incriminating?"

He glowers at the booklet in his palm.

"I was checking for hidden microphones."

"Sure." She comes closer, peering at the offending document over his broad shoulder. "Can't hurt to do a second check. What did you find instead?"

James frowns.

"This was stashed in one of the books." His hand twitches when he hands it off to her, as if it's unspeakably dirty or slimy. Natasha recognizes the title of a Tijuana bible. She's been monitoring their publication; there's been a resurgence, now that the Avengers lead such public lives. Minor irritant, occasionally humorous. Most of them are distributed online as PDFs, but apparently Clint has managed to get his hands on one of the originals from the 50s. "What the hell is this?" James glares at it.

Natasha smirks.

"That appears to be a pornographic depiction of Stalin, fellating Captain America." Her eyebrows perk up. "And enjoying it."

James' expression is sour.

"There are better ones. Clint probably only kept this for the collector's value. The art is less impressive than some of the more recent-"

"I don't need to know." He shakes his head. "Forget I asked."

Natasha thinks she catches him blushing as he turns away, and allows herself a moment of amusement at his expense. It's an unkind thought, but she's tempted to download a few of the raunchier ones, just to watch his reactions. She won't. There's no merit in doing so. But it is pleasant to imagine. James is in the kitchen, checking the temperature of the two mugs laid out on the counter.

"Tea." He shrugs, barely looking at her. "I made tea."

She offers him a smile, following him around the island. She takes the mug. It's warm, and smells like ginger and lemon. There's no tea bag. He grins when she notices.

"There was some ginger root in the cabinet, and a lemon that was going to go bad in a week hanging out in the fridge. Old recipe." He swallows, the muscles around his eyes twitching. "I remember it."

She scans the contents of the mug one last time before she tastes it. The tea is warm; the flavor is spicy and bitter and sweet. It's pleasant. This version of tea is better than water. She can taste the juice, the syrup James must have made out of the ginger root. When she swallows it, the ginger creates a pleasant tickling sensation in her throat.

"It's good." She pauses. "You did well."

"There are painkillers." He points to a bottle on the counter. "And vitamins. If you want."

"No." She suppresses a shudder. "I don't take pills."

He doesn't question it.

Sipping, Natasha leans against the counter. James continues to stand. The mug is awkward in his hands, it looks so small in comparison to the rest of him. He finishes the tea in one gulp, wiping his lips with his flesh hand.

"How many days since you've slept?"

She shrugs.

"As many as you, give or take."

His mouth works around the remaining taste.

"You should rest. While we're here." He puts the mug down. "I'll keep watch."

She searches his posture, replays the words in her head, but there's no evidence of a trap. He's had chances to kill her (to try), and he hasn't taken them. She sleeps light. There is risk. But, what had she said earlier? Never safe. She has liver her life like this, and escaped unscathed so far. There are worse places to sleep than a soft bed, with a ghost watching over you.

"Sure. Give me six hours."

James huffs.

"I'd rather give you ten."

She rolls her eyes.

"Eight, then. I don't need more."

He looks like he doubts her, but she doesn't care. She can wake herself up when she needs to. Natasha takes the mug with her into Clint's bedroom. The lights are off, and she doesn't turn them on. She can see everything she needs without them. She and James had checked the room when they first entered the apartment, but now, she allows the irrelevant details to mean something to her. There are Brooklyn Dodgers posters on the wall (nice to know he wasn't pretending for Rogers' benefit). The bed is wide. Natasha sits, patiently finishing her tea. The smell in the room is familiar. The same soap, year after year. No artificial scents or colognes. The smells here are cotton and sweat and clean, fresh water. Finished, Natasha places the mug on the bedside table. She knows that inside the drawer is a copy of something called _A Spell for Chameleon_ , as well as condoms, an unopened toothbrush, and a package of hot chocolate.

Natasha leans back into the pillows. The scent is stronger in the sheets. They're clean, but old, and soft. Clint has made an impression in them. She knows this feels familiar because she can envision it. Real memories feel strange in a way that false ones don't. She olds on to her left wrist, squeezing it with her right hand. Yes, there it is.

The room was large, and the length of the space made it feel empty. There was only one bed, but she had been informed that this was not a solitary confinement room, and the facilities surrounding it suggested that she was not in a prison.

Natasha takes a shallow breath, then forces herself to continue breathing as she normally would.

Pierce was beside her. He instructed her to lie down, and to raise her wrist. He produced a pair of silver handcuffs. They were a familiar style. She was confident that she could break out of them. There were sufficient tools in the room to create a lock pick, and if those failed, or she needed to move quickly, she could break her thumb and slip out of the cuffs without fuss. Pierce cuffed her to the railing on the bed, above her head. This would not be a sufficient obstacle.

"We're going to ease you out of this. But for your first night. We just want you to feel comfortable."

And then he left her. After four minutes, the light automatically went out.

She did not understand what he said. Comfortable? The position was not conducive to efficient blood circulation. Her limb would not be harmed by it, but her body worked better when there was maximum oxygenation in all of her limbs. More comfortable? This implied that the handcuffing was something familiar to her, but she did not remember it. The last six months had been an alternating series of missions and rests, and she had slept alone during a high percentage of required sleep intervals.

Before those months of work, she was in training, the necessary refresher courses. She was accustomed to sleeping in a dormitory, six beds to a room. And before that training, she was out in the field almost constantly.

There was something familiar about the handcuff, but she was having trouble parsing it out. She had a distinct memory of it happening to someone who was not Natasha Romanoff, or Natalia Romanova. She remembers Alexei, a story he told about sleeping in a wide, vast room of beds, bigger than a training dormitory, somewhere warmer and drier, with lots of sunlight. Those beds had been similar to this one, narrow and short, a size for a growing child, with white sheets and a thin mattress. There had been bars where he rested his pillow, and he had slept every night chained to them. The sound of the locks being opened greeted him every morning.

She remembered this story, and it felt so familiar in her body, the strange, stagnated rush of blood struggling to get to her fingertips.

She did not recall the sound of his voice as he recounted the story, but it was there, underneath her skin. Something about the position rekindled it, and she struggled to find his face, the words he'd used, but she couldn't even remember the language. Was it Russian? It should have been. But perhaps it was English, the language they were instructed to learn so that it was more familiar than their own. Though she wondered if perhaps he would have spoken in Romanian. Out of some childish will to rebel, maybe.

The door opened, and she gasped, because she couldn't help it. She couldn't hear anything in the hallway when the door was closed.

"Christ."

Agent Barton. She rolled, leaving her arm to stretch over her head. It was not a pleasant feeling for her shoulder, but it was worth it to see his silhouette in the door frame before the motion sensors, reacting to his swift stride, reacted with a shock of light. 

"Good evening."

"I told them- God I'm sorry, where'd they leave the key?"

He crouched down beside the bed, frowning at her wrist.

"They did not leave a key in the room when they locked me in, and there are only sixteen adequate hiding places for one. I have not had the opportunity to look-"

"Christ almighty." He shook his head. "I'll go get help. Will you be okay if I go get someone? It shouldn't take long."

She felt her lips crinkle around the words.

"Help?"

He rubbed his thumb underneath the cuff, against her wrist.

"We've gotta get you out of these."

She shrugged.

"I can get out."

His eyes spread a little wider.

"You can?"

She nodded.

"Would you like to see-"

He stopped her before she could break the joint in her thumb.

"No." He held her hand. "You don't need to do that. Just let me get Pierce-"

"Pierce is the one that locked me in."

His expression changed in a way she couldn't describe. Wrapped up in his scent in DC, the sheets a sturdy presence around her shoulders, she still can't.

"He did what."

It was unclear what he was looking for; she had already given him the answer.

"He said it was to make me feel comfortable."

Agent Barton closed his eyes. He did not take his hand away from hers. He looked tired, odd little creases forming around his eyes, and he must have been thirsty as well, because he was swallowing like there was a lump in his throat.

"Are you-"

"Would you like to sleep?"

His forehead wrinkled.

"What?"

She leaned her head to the side, away from him, behind her, towards the pillows.

"Why else did you come here?"

His lips twisted, folded in on themselves.

"I heard." He closed his mouth, jaw clenching, before he tried again. "I was worried about you."

"I'm." Fed, clean, clothed, room-temperature. "I am 'all right', that is how you said?"

He nodded.

"That's what I say when I'm not feeling hurt or bad."

She didn't know about bad, but all of her hurts were minor and not life-threatening.

"I think I am all right, Agent Barton. I can see that you require sleep. May I-"

"Is that what you want?"

She was not sure how to answer. He waited for more than a minute, though crouching beside the bed was likely not a comfortable position for his knees. She spent that time staring at his hearing aid, at the faint light behinds his antihelix. When he moved, she blinked.

"Goodnight, Natasha."

"Wait."

She understood. Between the two options presented, she would rather Agent Barton stayed with her than left. That was what he meant by 'want'. He stopped, and turned around, letting her speak.

"I want you to stay here."

"I don't know..." he glanced at her arm, shaking his head. "I think it might be a better idea to find the key for that thing."

She did not want him to leave, she was certain. It was all right that her arm remained handcuffed to the bed. That would sort itself out. She would likely be released in the morning, and if not, she would be able to escape unaided before it become a problem.

"Stay."

Barton wet his lips.

"I'm not doing anything while you're... like that."

She assumed he was referring to work, but they had not been assigned any, and she thought he needed rest. It was acceptable. He could sleep beside her while she was confined to the bed. It would be... companionable. Obviously this was not allowed in Russia, but she had been told many times that S.H.I.E.L.D. was different, and she found... she wanted this to mean that companions were no longer unacceptable. It was a vulnerability, but she felt strong, and clever, and Natasha was confident that she could overcome this problem. Her handlers, she had learned, were bad, which meant they were also often wrong. It was possible they were wrong about companions leading to vulnerabilities leading to weaknesses leading to failures.

"It's all right, Agent Barton."

He snorted.

"If we're gonna be cuddle buddies, you can start calling me Clint."

He was smiling, so Natasha thought the appropriate response was a smile.

"Are you going to sleep with me?"

He huffed a sigh.

"Looking at you..." then he groaned. "I really wanna fuck you right now."

Perhaps he was assigned after all. He bent down and kissed her, cupping her cheek. It was different from the first kiss. He was breathing harder, but the way he moved was more delicate, and gentle. This was not a technique she was used to, but she learned, had always been gifted at learning and adapting and shifting herself to suit the moment, so she kissed him back, mimicking and then expanding on what she knew. She wondered if the way he kissed her had to do with the thing called 'preference', something to do with 'want'.

He leaned back first, and she sensed that he did not want her to follow him. It was not as if she could, with the handcuff, and he had already made it clear he did not want her to break her thumb.

"Sleep. Right."

He stood, lifting off his shirt. She watched him step out of his boots and pants, until he was standing in front of her in socks and briefs. It was confusing. He said that he wanted to fuck her, but he was deciding to do something else instead. Sleep, which is an essential, and it was something he needed, but it was not the thing he wanted to do. He stepped around the bed and settled onto it behind her, reaching his arms across her abdomen. Perhaps that was what was meant by 'want', something preferred but not essential. Which means it can be ignored when necessary. So all of the agents asking her what she wants, they just wanted to know what things she would take that were not essential. It was an odd thing to consider.

"Is this all right?" Clint whispered to her ear. She nodded, assuming he would understand that she meant yes.

Having his arm around her was not essential; she had not been ordered to do so and it would not keep her alive. But she would take it if it was offered and it would not interfere with a mission or a normal function. She felt him softening against her backside. Perhaps he felt the same way about her. It had been such a long time since she thought about companionship, she wondered if this is what is was always like.

The light went out, and Natasha closed her eyes, since there was no longer a purpose to keeping them open.

The sound of Clint's breath evening out was pleasant, and produced a soothing, ticklish sensation across the back of her neck. She tensed and released the muscles of her arm and hand, forced them to remain active. Numbness would be difficult to maneuver with. Sleep was not necessary for another twenty-four hours, but Pierce left her here and cuffed her to the bed, so he must have thought she would need to rest. There were undercover operations where this illusion was necessary. The entire ordeal was probably a test. She was determined to pass.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna come hang out with me on Tumblr I'm shamwowxl because fuck brand continuity.


	18. Blood Pressure

In eight hours, Natasha wakes up. The room was not disturbed during her rest. She stretches, listening to the sounds that have changed. There is no traffic outside; it is still too early. The sun is barely rising. She can smell coffee, made with vanilla. There is a breeze, she can sense the occasional shudder against the windowpane coming from the outside. Her eyes adjust to consciousness. It is odd. She is sure she slept for eight hours precisely. She did not expect to.

James is in the kitchen, standing over the stove. The rest of the apartment has been wiped clean of their presence. She watches him buttering toast. Nothing about his posture changes when she approaches, but she knows he knows she's there.

"I found some bread in the freezer. A few slices won't be an issue."

Natasha sits down at one of the places laid out at the island, waiting for him to serve her. She sips the coffee uninvited. It is good, and still warm.

"I need to leave."

When he turns around, a plate of toast in one hand, she can tell that he's forcing his expression to stillness.

"Where?"

She takes the plate.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

He grits his teeth. Suddenly, he turns, pacing the length of the apartment and sorting through his supplies. He returns with a small plastic tube, a pen, a piece of paper, and a knife. Natasha watches his hands, but he lays them both out on the table in front of her.

"Write down the coordinates. And a date." His voice sounds hollow. "If I don't meet you there, I'll track you down."

She doesn't doubt it. Natasha nibbles the toast, etching the information in tiny, precise letters. It's a decent meeting place, discrete, impossible to be surrounded there, any enemy presence would be obvious immediately. She rolls up the paper and hands it to him.

James takes it, adding a few more details before he slides the paper inside the plastic tube. While she eats, James unbuttons his pants, feeling around his hipbone for the sensitive nerves around his pelvis. She watches, understanding what he's trying to accomplish without needing words. Using the knife in his right hand, he cuts a smooth line through his skin, holding it open with his fingers. He shoves the tube inside, then forces the wound closed. He shifts a few times, testing it.

"It has to be annoying enough that I'll find it later."

She finishes the food, and the coffee, swallowing it all down.

"Makes sense." She reaches for her coat. "Want to grab the shield with me?"

"I do." He licks his lips. "But I shouldn't. I've spent too much time with you."

She nods. He doesn't move. Natasha takes care of the dishes, putting them back where she'd seen them during their investigation last night. James stands where she left him, not watching, barely listening. When she's finished resetting the kitchen, she rejoins him. She slings her pack over her shoulder.

"James?"

He stares at her, eyes wide. His fingers twitch like he wants to reach for her, but he doesn't. His lets his breath escape in a puff of air. It's seconds before he takes another one.

"My blood," he rasps.

Natasha does another check of the kitchen, but there are no traces left. When she looks at him again, James has asserted more control over himself. His shoulders look more sturdy, and she is confident he will do what needs to be done.

"Any information you can get." She glances at his hip. "I'll know where to look for it."

He nods.

"Anywhere that hurts. Or else it gets lost."

He picks up his own bag of supplies.

"Don't." He shrugs. "Take unnecessary risks." He sighs. "I could do something about that hit. Find out who took the contract. I can-"

"Don't bother." She touches one of the garrotes concealed at her waist. "We have more important work to do."

He makes another move, like he still wants to reach for her, but he takes a step backwards instead.

He heads for the balcony. "I'll take the scenic route." He takes one last look at her before he goes. "Take care." He doesn't look away from her. "I'll miss you."

* * *

The shield is exactly where he said he left it. Natasha retrieves it. _Thank you_ is what she should have said. For the uninterrupted sleep. For the tea. For a mission well-done, and for an admonition she's not used to hearing. She is not used to feeling the concern of others. Rogers occasionally imposes the feeling on her, but she has proven herself capable many times, and he understands what it is like to resent the well-meaning scrutiny of other people. Lately, Sharon has started voicing her worry, and Natasha is not sure yet how to make her stop. She hopes that the "space" they are giving each other will do the trick.

Clint knows better.

She isn't angry with James. There's no point in feeling angry. Gratitude is not exceedingly useful either, but it is harder to deny the sensation. It was... not unpleasant, to have him watching out for her. To know that he was on a mission with her, shooting attackers over her shoulder before they had a chance to fall to her in combat.

Natasha leaves the Smithsonian, the weapon concealed in a drum case strapped to her back. Feelings like this are not safe. Thoughts like this are more dangerous than a hundred people who want to kill her, a thousand well-trained assassins, a million trials. She knows what to do when faced with a gun, or an arrow, a knife or a bomb. She knows when it is time to concede (those times are rare). She cannot care for the Soldier. He is an asset, and she is using him to find out more about Hydra, to determine the nature of the threat, and eliminate it. His mission is to protect Hydra. She assumes that this is at all costs.

It's time to go to London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to drop a behemoth on you last time only to give you this little series of moments today. I promise London will be full of bullets and bad news.


	19. Chimera

Cassandra is alive, despite all reports to the contrary.

Natasha remembers the body, but it was not a confirmation. The limbs were mangled, and the face was burned. She had only been certain because there was no reason to believe anyone had lied. There was no purpose.

Cassandra had given their handlers a purpose.

Natasha watches the house from her vantage point on a rooftop a block away. Lying flat, the sun makes her healing back sore, but the thick trees should conceal her. It is a quiet neighborhood. The file Natasha read in North Korea indicated that Cassandra had been given a mission, and instead she abandoned the program. Natasha's lips curl. Another defector. This quiet corner of London is sedate during the day. In the distance, she can hear a car stopping for a traffic light. There are rodents scurrying through the grass down below. It is an odd place for Cassandra to be.

The nature of this last mission was not specified, but it does not seem relevant. The pertinent information is that Cassandra was allowed to go. She had uncovered enough secrets that Department X was forced to allow it. She spied on them until she didn't have to anymore, probably knew who they all were, where their families were. The handlers must have been afraid of what they taught her to do.

Natasha remembers a thin girl, ten years her senior, with strong, rugged bones jutting out from her shoulders and hips and cheeks. Blonde and blue-eyed, the handlers called her beautiful and when they said it, they meant it. Her biology was a triumph, the tests didn't mark her like the others. Natasha remembers learning the chokehold from her, the skin of her neck contorting as she struggled in the grip of Cassandra's long fingers. It has been useful to know the number of seconds it takes before the victim starts to see spots, the feeling of lungs as they struggle to fill with air, the lightheadedness and muscular weakness that follows the absence of oxygen in the limbs and brain.

Natasha is aware that she has been noticed, but it is too late for her to run. Cassandra stands on her doorstep, looking out. She checks her mail, even though the mail has not yet been delivered. Natasha waits. Her heart is beating too fast; there is no need for it, not when she hasn't physically exerted herself. She grinds the corner of her lip beneath her canine tooth. Cassandra pauses when she reaches for the doorknob, and she doesn't lock it behind her.

There will be no other invitation.

Natasha leaps to the ground, landing in the back yard of a home whose residents are all at work or school, no canine presence. She walks, the knife in her hand concealed by her sleeve. Civilian clothing. Not always practical, but the baggier material makes it easier to hide these things. She doesn't want to walk through through the front door, but she knows that if she tries to enter the house by any other means, she will be attacked, and. The outcome of such a fight would not be. Optimal.

Natasha opens the door, steps inside, and closes it behind her.

"Coffee?" Cassandra's voice, she's sitting down, but the quality of the sound is not diminished.  

The house smells familiar and separate all at once.

Natasha walks through the clean hall, past the prominently displayed photographs, into the kitchen.

“It’s a little early, don’t you think?” She can smell the bourbon from where she pauses in the doorframe.

“You should learn to live a little.” Cassandra purses her lips. “Unless. You never drink, do you?” She gestures to the table in the center of the room.

Natasha shrugs.

"No, I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t.” Her eyes glitter. “Sit.”

Cassandra is still blonde, and her eyes are still blue. She is still sharp, by every definition of the word.

"Hello, Natalia."

Natasha freezes mid-step.

"That's not my name."

Cassandra waves her hand.

"I don't care. Sit."

There is no reason not to.

Natasha takes a seat across from her.

"None of our sisters have come looking for me. You're the first."

Her accent is such a precise imitation of the British that anyone else would not make a note of it.

"They're all under the impression you died."

Cassandra's demeanor doesn't change.

"I thought I trained you better than that."

Natasha takes a shallow breath.

"It was a very convincing corpse."

Cassandra barks a laugh. It hits Natasha's nerves.

"And did you cry for me? Did any of you? I hope not."

Natasha shakes her head, staring at the table.

"No."

The wood is very smooth.

"Natalia."

She cringes.

"Yes."

Feeling Cassandra watch her is unsettling.

"Tell me what you came here for."

Natasha licks her lips. She catches a glimpse of another photograph attached to the refrigerator. A little girl with a shock of red hair smiles out at her.

"You have a child?"

When she looks up, Cassandra's eyes are wide, and Natasha savors the moment she managed to change her.

"That's what you came to ask me?"

Natasha shakes her head.

"No. It's just." She rolls her shoulders. "What's her name?" Pushing her advantage.

"Alexa."

Casandra takes an abrupt sip of her coffee.

Natasha feels like she is choking. It feels strange.

"An odd choice."

Cassandra shrugs.

"Maybe you'd feel differently, if you could have them."

Natasha nods. Cassandra's gaze locks on the movement. "So, you know?"

"I know enough."

Cassandra's cheeks twitch in response, and her teeth show between her lips.

"Do you?" She puts down her mug. "Do you really know enough?" Her smile looks more like a grimace. "Are you sure you don't want to pull the thread, until it all unravels?" Her head twists to the side. "Do you really think you know enough already?"

Natasha speaks through her teeth.

"I came here because."

"Speak!" Cassadra's voice fills up the quaint room.

"You were attached to something called Operation: Orphan." Cassandra doesn't move. "I need to shut it down."

Her words sound inadequate. There is no rational reason for this.

"You should have some coffee." Cassandra taps on the inside of her own elbow. "Keeps you going better than the capsules ever did."

Natasha leans away from her, back pressed up against the chair.

"I don't need it. I just need to know-"

"So you _do_ want to know." Cassandra's voice cracks on the last word. She's kept up a smoking habit. That's what the smell is. "You need me."

"You were the best option, not the only one."

Pierce smoked cigarettes.

Cassandra raises her left eyebrow. "Do you intend to torture me then?"

Natasha swallows.

"Will you make me?"

The house is too warm; there's sunlight illuminating the particles of dust floating over the table between them. Cassandra slides her hand across the surface, grasps the mug. Her knuckles are white as she takes another sip. Angry, Natasha remembers angry. Too many wrong answers in a short amount of time means angry. Means running. Means resistance training. Means rewriting.

"They're using the machines," Natasha is startled by the sound of her own voice. "They intend to use them on everyone. The entire population of the planet." She can feel the edge of the table pressed against the inside of her palm, she's gripping it so hard it feels sharp like a knife digging inside her skin, burying. Cassandra releases her mug.

"They?"

Natasha glares.

"The ones that matter."

This is a language they both understand. Cassandra nods.

"And now you are looking for Operation: Orphan." She looks at Natasha like she's looking through her. "Why do you think there is a connection."

She doesn't. She still knows nothing about it. Not the target, not the goals, not the players involved or the name of the mission head. The only tenable connection is Pierce, and his involvement means nothing. Insight was his plan, as was the failsafe. His leadership led to the truce between Hydra and Department X, an end to the clandestine war they'd been waging for decades. Of course his name appears as a common thread in the files on the Orphan Project. His presence is everywhere.

"If they intend to rewrite the planet, they will certainly use the Orphan." Cassandra gives a harsh laugh. "Every attempt I made to duplicate was unsuccessful." She runs her index fingers across her throat, making a hissing noise with her gums. "Every time."

Natasha blinks.

"How?"

Cassandra rubs her hand across her stomach.

"I made sure of it." She licks her lips. "But you're not one of us anymore. You save the world from monsters in the sky. You're not a secret. Except the parts of you that weren't written down."

Natasha almost bites her tongue.

"You know about them?"

She nods.

"They asked me to be one of them."

Natasha swallows.

"Are you?"

"I'm not one of _theirs_ ," Cassandra hisses. "I disappeared with two thousand dollars. I gave myself a name. I wrote myself a story." Her eyes glitter like harsh steel. "I am retired. I keep their secrets in exchange for my peace."

They both hear it. A plane. Moving too fast, and too quiet, to be anything else. Cassandra growls.

"Those are yours."

Natasha is already standing in the doorframe, gun raised over her chest, finger hovering over the trigger. Cassandra is armed lightly, three knives on her person, several more of the domestic variety in the kitchen. Natasha has been tracking them since before she was sighted. Seven distinct footfalls on the roof. Engine hovering overhead. The weight of equipment sends shudders through the ceiling above them. The walls of the house shake.

"You brought them here Natalia." Cassandra stands at the opposite end of the room. "You brought them here."

Natasha takes a breath. They're descending.

"Yeah. I brought them here. Relax about it."

The first one comes thundering down the stairs as eight more land outside. Natasha handles the internal threat first. They are barreling through the hallway and she is prepared for the attack. Thin corridor, photos on the wall, close quarters always put the odds in her favor. The first one is armed with a stun baton. She sways out of the way, grabbing his wrist and hauling him into the wall behind her, using his own momentum against him. The force propels her forwards, and she tumbles into a crouch, severing the Achilles tendons of the second assailant in her path. He falls into the line of fire of his associates, and Natasha uses his flailing body as a shield, firing at her targets from behind adequate coverage. Three dead, one incapacitated. There are three more, she can hear them waiting above her. She fires at them through the floor. They fall. Her last mark is sniveling on the floor, grasping at his bloody legs. She kicks his head, hard enough to break his neck. It makes him quiet. Natasha takes his gun.

In the kitchen, Cassandra is surrounded by a pile of corpses. Only one of her knives is bloody. She crouches over one of her kills, prying a gun from the man's dead fingers before they grow stiff. Out of habit, Cassandra checks the ammunition. Not a single shot fired.

"There are more." Cassandra glares at the ceiling. "They'll be regrouping, after these ones fail to report in."

Natasha nods.

"They're here for me. I'll go."

"Without me?" Cassandra snarls. "You're mine," she grabs Natasha's wrist and drags her out of the kitchen, towards the side of the house. "I decide if you live or die. No one else."

Natasha feels hard, but she follows Cassandra. Without pausing her stride, Cassandra grabs a chair and throws it through the window ahead of them. It shatters in a sparkling cascade of fractured light. They run, Natasha barely keeping pace instead of allowing herself to be dragged through the debris. Automatic gunfire from above follows them the minute they leap outside, and Cassandra flings Natasha towards the car parked in the driveway. Natasha grasps the handle and whips open the door, hurling herself into the passenger seat. Cassandra slides across the hood of the car, and bullets dent the surface in her wake. Natasha has already found the spare key tucked inside the glove compartment and shoved it in the ignition. She twists the key and the engine rumbles beneath them as Cassandra takes the wheel.

"They'll follow us," Natasha intones.

Cassandra grabs the steering wheel, and the car snaps to life beneath her.

"They had better."

The wheel screech as the car lurches down the street, chased by a barrage of gunfire. Natasha turns around in her seat, leaning against it as she searches for targets through the tinted rear window.

The plane chases them, firing the heavy artillery into the road. Cassandra swerves, making the car a more difficult target. Natasha aims for the cameras at the front of the plane (disable the enemy's eyes if you can't take out the rest of him), but the shooting stops before she has a clear shot at any of them. Natasha spins around as Cassandra maneuvers off the road and onto the sidewalk, avoiding a collision with the backup: three armored cars, with enough firepower in them that they're just short of tanks.

"Damn you!" Cassandra shrieks as she steers through a neighbor's yard, tires groaning. Her tactic has bought them time, as they drive through rose bushes and fences, breaking through to the other side of the neighborhood, but the vehicles are still in pursuit, and gaining. Populated area. Residential. Suburban. Limited resources, fewer cameras to avoid, but even minor damage will be noticed. Cassandra's car is civilian, not made for stealth or navigating away from an attack like this one. Natasha reaches into her boot, drawing out a micro grenade. One of the armored cars pulls up beside them, mercenaries targeting them with a machine gun mounted on the hood. It fires, and Natasha ducks as the car jerks. Two of the men in the back open the door, automatic rifles ready, presumably to deter them from disabling the gun on the roof. Natasha waits until they've blown a hole in the window behind her before tossing the grenade into the car. She doesn't need to watch it to know that it lands, and the blast launches their car forwards.

"One down," she sighs.

The other two cars surround them on both sides, boxing them in. Natasha doesn't waste her bullets, knowing that they won't pierce the reinforced steel. These ones won't make the same mistake as the last. Cassandra accelerates, veering at the last second onto a narrow drive down a steep hill, letting the sharp incline carry them down faster. Overhead, the plane hovers around them, and something heavy drops onto the roof of their car. A drone. It begins drilling.

Natasha leaps up and out of the car through her broken window, activating the shock gauntlets on her wrists. The drone reacts, but not fast enough. She electrocutes it, dismantling it before the machine can recover. Bullets skim her feet, and Cassandra swerves, disorienting their pursuit.

Suddenly, the car skids to a stop, tires screaming. Natasha slides down the front, slamming her elbow on the hood. Scrambling to recover, she reaches for the wipers, but they won't hold her, she's going to fall-

They're read-ended by one of their pursuers. The force of the impact propels the car forwards, and Natasha finds herself being flung through the windshield. She chokes on the spray of glass. She catches a glimpse of the car behind them; the driver and the passenger are bleeding all over their airbags. The other car is ahead of them. Cassandra reaches for the holster behind Natasha's calf. She shoots the three men in the car, then fires two more bullets at the base of the machine gun mounted on their vehicle. The damage to the joint makes it vulnerable to the kickback from the gun; after two more shots, it snaps, flinging bullets at the plane above them. Panels crumble and fall from the sky, crashing into the cars, and the plane departs before it can sustain more damage.

Natasha spits out more glass, glaring.

"You were taking too long," Cassandra snarls, getting out of the car. Natasha, gritting her teeth to prevent the limp in her left leg, chases her. The wrecks smell saccharine, like burning confectioner's sugar. Cassandra steps around the debris, metal and torn asphalt crunching beneath her sneakers.

"I was trying to minimize the damage." Natasha snaps, close on her heels. "I was trying to protect your cover!"

Cassandra tears off an armored door, yanking a bloody corpse out onto the street.

"Don't bother." She hauls herself inside the car, punching the ceiling underneath the machine gun. "I am going to tell the world exactly what happened here, and why." She spins, shoving Natasha out of the way as she flings herself out of the car and onto the roof. "And who is at fault."

Natasha's lip curls.

"I'm sorry."

Cassandra yanks the machine gun off the car. "Can your sorry undo all this?" Natasha shakes her head. Cassandra hoists the gun over her shoulder. "Then sorry doesn't do dick for me." She aims at the retreating plane, emptying the chamber into the engine. The plane twitches, then explodes, propelled towards the ground in a haze of smoke. Cassandra watches it sink. Natasha takes a gun from the deceased driver, circling back to make sure the two in the other car are dead.

"Leave one," Cassandra calls.

One is mortally impaired, and the other is barely coherent, but stable. Concussion. Manageable injury. Natasha shoots the goner. Cassandra shoves her out of the way before she can drag the injured man out of the driver's seat. In her hand is a serial number. Natasha recognizes the series. Cassandra throws it, and grabs the man's throat, squeezing.

"Which ones are you?!" She hisses at the man, his head lolling as she shakes him. "Are you contractors, or do you all have badges."

The man's lips are sticky with blood.

"The North Institute," he rasps.

Disgusted, Cassandra releases him, and he crumbles. Natasha feels her own breath return.

"You're being followed by the fucking United States government. You stupid girl." She rounds on Natasha. "I want to know why. We'll bring him back to the house." she rolls her shoulders. "My daughter will be home from school soon."


	20. Smothered

It is a long, heavy walk. 

Cassandra instructs her to tie the man to the table, facing the ceiling. He moans, but he's too weak to struggle. His nose is broken, and Natasha props his head up with a phone book to keep him from choking. A few of his ribs are cracked, and he's got a few cuts and bruises that, upon examination, are not dangerous. Cassandra smokes over the kitchen sink as Natasha preps him, watching the sidewalk through the open window. When the latch on the front door clicks, she doesn't move.

A little girl, about ten years of age, walks into the kitchen. Her skin is mottled, and her eyes are mismatched. She's small and thin, and Natasha feels her heart freezing in sympathy when she sees the extra people in the room.

"Mama?"

Cassandra turns, dashing out her cigarette on the counter. 

"Alexa. You and I are going to do another lesson."

The little girl swallows, and nods.

Cassandra makes a few shallows cuts over the man's thighs, tearing his pant legs open. He groans, tugging at the ropes, but they keep his limbs in place. 

"Can you list all of the sensitive nerves here, Alexa?"

She nods.

"The femoral. And the sciatic."

Cassandra nods, and begins to cut. Just teasing at first, to prove that she can. She points to the veins in the man's leg, describing the depth of cut needed to permanently incapacitate or kill him. She speaks like a doctor, calm and efficient, ignoring the mans pleas as they become more frequent and desperate. Alexa stands on a chair, leaning over the man's body, eyes scanning him. She does well, remembering answers without prompting. Natasha observes, ignoring him when he looks to her for help. 

"Good enough." Cassandra leans up. "Wash your hands, and if you have questions, ask Natasha. We'll eat when I'm finished."

Alexa hops down and rinses her fingers in the sink, then stands obediently beside Natasha, waiting. 

Cassandra begins. 

It becomes obvious that the man has not been taught to withstand torture, and that he has not been instructed to keep many secrets. The North Institute is replicating Russian biotechnology, basing their research off the documents Natasha released. Their subjects won't be super-soldiers, but the preliminary tests were promising enough to get a government contract. It didn't take much convincing for their investors to agree that eliminating any competition was a wise move.

Watching the man as he struggles and screams, Natasha fails to agree. 

Cassandra cracks her knuckles, and keeps pushing. Past the point of no return. Well after it's clear he has nothing else to tell them. Natasha feels a sour taste creeping up the back of her throat. She could have found this information, without extracting it from a human subject. A quick Google search would have revealed most of it, the North Institute is publicly traded. The rest would have been simple to infer. An illicit search of the Institute's private servers would have unearthed the rest. It would have been faster.

It would have been cleaner.

Instead, this man is leaking all over the floor, whimpering as Cassandra cracks open his femur, pouring bleach over his marrow until the nerves sizzle and die. He chokes, biting through his tongue. Cassandra picks up the shreds of it, crouching in front of her daughter. She shows her the bloody pieces.

"This is very important. If I needed more information from him, he would need to write it down. He can't talk without a tongue. What if I had broken his fingers? What use would he be to me then?"

Alexa nods, eyes wide.

"No use, mama."

"And that means elimination."

Alexa stares straight ahead. "Elimination."

Cassandra goes back to the table. It is useful to know how long a subject will withstand pain until the body reaches unconsciousness. It is important to understand how to prolong the inevitability of death. It is good practice, pulling a subject out of shock. Natasha knows this. These are lessons she remembers. Cassandra has always been a thorough instructor. 

Natasha also remembers fingers tightening around her windpipe, blue eyes staring through her as she struggled. It is important to understand the sensation of strangulation. It is useful to understand how the fingers and toes go numb as the body conserves oxygen. It is good to practice your recovery, because your opponent will not allow you to recover. _Good enough. Now, try it on Alexa._

Natasha squeezes her broken elbow. These memories are not useful. At her waist, Alexa is staring up at her. 

"Do you remember the names of all the bones in the human knee?"

Natasha does. She lists them, pointing to each one as the man's body is dismantled. There is a dishrag shoved between his lips, so her recitation goes uninterrupted. In the distance, there are sirens. Too far away. Local law enforcement won't link one of the smashed cars to this address any time soon. By the time they do, it will have been reported stolen, and the body will be somewhere no one will find it. This is a predictable routine. 

Cassandra kills him without fanfare. It is the beginning of the clean-up process.

"This lesson is complete, Alexa. We will discuss the decontamination procedure another time. There is a sandwich in the refrigerator. You may eat it. Go upstairs and do homework until your father gets home."

Alexa takes the sandwich and leaves. Her steps are graceful.Natasha feels the muscles in her stomach unclench. By the sink, Cassandra lights another cigarette, then reaches out to hand it to her. Natasha joins her and accepts it with numb fingers.

"Not bad for a fifty year-old." Cassandra licks her lips. "You don't find my lessons useful?"

Natasha shakes herself, taking a drag.

"I do."

Cassandra lights a cigarette for herself.

"You look like you want to stab both my eyes."

Natasha forces her eyebrow to curl upwards.

"See? Your lessons are plenty useful."

Cassandra barks a hollow laugh.

"You turned out wrong, you know that." She takes another drag. "I teach her the useful things. To keep her alive." Smoke trickles through her lips. "She's a beautiful dancer."

Natasha smokes. There is nothing for her to say.

"She won't be like the _other_ one. A coward-child." Cassandra sighs, smoke billowing out through her lips and nostrils. "But I don't use the psychotechnics."

Natasha tastes metal, and agrees.

"They limit the success of the program."

Cassandra glances at her, cheeks hollow.

"I'm not sure about that." She rolls her cigarette between her fingers. "Looking at you. I have my doubts."

Natasha flicks her own cigarette away. 

"You can't replicate them here anyway. Not without the machine." She crosses over to the table, cutting the knots around the dead man's wrists. 

"Selfish girl," Cassandra snaps behind her. "Chasing after ghosts. One rewrite is all it will take to eliminate that."

Natasha sucks on the lining of her cheeks. "As soon as you tell me what you know about Orphan, I'll leave, and-"

Cassandra grabs her shoulders, throwing her into the wall behind her. Natasha knows better than to fight her, pinned against the plaster. She can feel it cracking beneath her bones. 

"If you want to know more about Orphan, look at your own blood! Ghosts don't tell stories."

Natasha waits until Cassandra releases her. 

Seconds pass.

Cassandra lets go of her, stepping away. She rinses her hands in the sink, letting her cigarette fall down the drain. Natasha massages the bruises forming underneath her skin. It will make them heal faster. 

"I have friends."

Cassandra snorts. Natasha crosses her arms.

"They can protect you. Both of you."

Cassandra straightens, turing off the faucet. When she turns, she crosses her arms, making Natasha a perfect mirror image. 

"I don't need your _friends_ ," she scoffs.

"They'll come after you. Department X knows you're a valuable asset. And now that all of their secrets are out, you have nothing to hold over them." Natasha gestures at the ceiling, pinpointing the space Alexa is occupying. "You're worth too much to be left alone."

Cassandra howls, shoulders shaking with the force of her laughter.

"Oh, Natalia." She shakes her head. "I'd like to see them try."

She tears off the rest of the rope, gathering it up in a coil to be burned.

"Nico Constantin," she whispers. Natasha tenses, waiting for more. "If you can find him." Cassandra licks her lips. "He was the Wolf. He'll know more about Orphan than anyone." She taps her temple. "They never wrote over him. He only knows what they told him, but his memories are true."

Natasha nods, and helps her begin to unload the body.

"Thank you."


	21. Langer's lines

She has six days until her meeting with James. She uses them.

Niko is in Russia. Far north. It will be unpleasant, and she will not sleep, but these problems are unavoidable. She takes the train into Paris, and leaves the city on foot. From there, a flight. Wearing a disguise gets her far enough. Reconnaissance and falsified papers get her the rest of the way. 

The prison is not heavily staffed. It does not need to be. The prisoners are controlled and starved. There is no need to monitor the avenues of escape because there is no point in escaping. Natasha knows that there is nothing but frozen wilderness surrounding them; she knows because she just drove across it in a snowmobile she stole in Ukhta. 

She spends the evening in a tree, concealed by the pine-laden boughs. She watches the movements of the guards through binoculars, tracking their points of contact, memorizing their routine. There is a pattern of avoidance she notices after half an hour of observation. The hut on the outskirts of the prison, sequestered from the general population. There is only one visit during the day that suggests the station has not been entirely abandoned. Three guards, carrying one tray of food. One meal per day. It matches the research she was able to do on the subject. Niko Constantin is considered dangerous, handled with caution and tempered by isolation. 

She moves when the sun sets, using the cover of darkness to keep her safe. The starlight is brighter up north, not muted by electricity and smog, but the moon isn't full, and waiting for a bad storm this late in the season would be impractical. Conditions are not likely to improve. Natasha relies on her own skill and the deterrent of the cold to protect her from the patrols. She uses the shock cuffs to short-circuit a section of the electrified fence, gritting her teeth against the bright, lancing pain that scores her body as it rebounds through her, preventing a bitten-off tongue. Tearing her way through is easy. She restores the hole enough that it will not be noticed. Not enough to hinder her escape. If only the same could be done about her footprints in the snow. 

Less evidence, if she had entered as a prisoner. So much simpler, for her enemies to bring her into their den. But an operation like that takes time. She needs to be in and out of Russia in enough time to liaise with James. 

She has not yet decided what she will do with him when she gets there. 

Natasha ignores that problem. She crouches low, making wide strides to the footpath beaten into the packed snow. Her white garments will blend in, but she has to walk slowly. Listen. Careless sentries will make noises in the snow; their feet will crunch and their breaths will be rugged. Let the air grind through your lungs, let it mask your shifting form. You are only snow, unsettled by the wind. It is a mantra she relies on without thinking, and her body accepts the optimal stride unprompted. The snow has melted and hardened unevenly during the day; it doesn't shift or move in unpredictable ways. She arrives at the outpost, and no alarm follows her. She draws a knife, hiding it in her sleeve. 

It is a hovel. There is a roof, but only one wall, and it is designed to provide the barest shelter from the elements. The support beams rattle when the wind picks up. Inside is a lone prisoner, chained to the ground. Weather-roughened skin is red with broken blood vessels. There are heavy metal cuffs on his wrists and ankles connected to a short lead, keeping him close to the ground. His wrists and ankles will have suffered permanent damage from the prolonged internment. Natasha suspects that the spine may have grown deformed from the enforced posture. His clothing is insufficient for the temperature, and there are signs of frostbite present on the bare tips of his fingers and the end of his nose. There is no chamber pot, no hole in the ground or other means of defecating, and Natasha can smell the evidence from where she stands, five feet away. His hair is overgrown and matted in a long tangle down his shoulders and back. There is a collar around his throat, with a blade attached to it; if he bends his head forwards or backwards, he will be impaled. No way to fall asleep. It is impossible to torture this man's body, it has already endured all that it can. 

Natasha wraps her fingers around the knife in her sleeve. 

"Niko Constantin."

He answers her in Russian.

"Have you come here to kill me?"

She turns her head to the side, examining him. 

"Is that what you want?"

His arms jerk in an aborted gesture, cut off by the heavy chains. 

"What do you think?"

She crouches, making sure he can see her face. There is no recognition there, but that means very little.

"You could do it yourself. Bend your neck. It would be over very soon."

He runs his tongue across his cracked lips.

"And give them the satisfaction?" He spits. "Bah! I want to be murdered. I want them to scramble after my killer." His eyelids twitch. "I want them to suffer."

Natasha grins.

"You can't, can you?" He frowns, and she knows, as surely as she knows herself. "You tried." His breath escapes in chunks of white. "You failed." She edges closer, still out of reach. "It would be a waste."

The man's lips form a growl.

"And what am I now, if not a waste?"

She hears the echo of her bygone self in those words. Her only attempt had been private. She had been clever enough not to publicize her decision, once it had been made. She had been determined to expire without fanfare. Her body had felt foreign and unclean to her, and she had longed to be separated from it.  But when she reached for the knife she had been issued with her assignment, her hands would not behave. As if they were deaf, her limbs had betrayed her, fingers gone numb, refusing to listen to her as she commanded them to move, to finalize her wish. There had been a second attempt, but it was a demonstration, there was no menace behind it. Pierce had asked her if she could eliminate herself, if a command would override the bone-deep training. She proved to him that it would not. After such an investment in her life, the proof that only the best will survive the training, there was no chance her handlers would allow her to release herself that way. And they did not believe she would consider any other means. 

She almost had not. 

 _But I_ am _a waste now, aren't I? I defied them._ Pierce had smiled, and taken the knife from her where she clutched it sturdy above her neck. _Well, that's up to you now, isn't it? I think_ , she can feel his fingers warm against her cheek as she remembers his touch. _I think our work together could be my greatest gift to mankind._ And she had wanted, so much, to be good. 

Constantin is wide-eyed. He doesn't recognize her, but her understands who she is.

"You are one of them. My sisters."

She inclines her head.

"I was. I defected." He doesn't understand. She shrugs. "We're from the same family. I just fell farther from the tree."

He swallows.

"That should not have been possible."

"I've done lots of impossible things," she whispers.

The muscles in Constantin's shoulders clench and unclench as he grinds his teeth.

"Did you come here to release me?"

"I came here for information."

His voice cracks on a laugh, rugged from disuse. 

"And what will you give me for it, defector?" His breath whistles as he inhales, deep and slow. "Will you spill my blood on the snow?" The chains rattle. "Will you make them suffer as I would?" His bared teeth glitter in the starlight. "Will you make me happy?"

His words are punctuated by spittle. Natasha watches it fall. 

"I will end your life." She doesn't move, though his eyes light up, she knows she's not within reach. She's calculated the range of motion he's been allowed, and she is a centimeter outside of his grasp. "And I can promise you that my continued existence is a source of misery for the ones who created us." She clicks her teeth. "But unhappiness is our lot in life. It's easier when you accept it."

He lets his breath escape between his teeth. It is fortunate that the wind is directing the sound of their voices towards the wilderness. She doesn't think anyone will be nearby; this prisoner is a pariah. But being over-cautious never killed anyone.

Except Stalin, she thinks with an internal smile. 

"Do you accept my proposal?"

He leans back, letting the chains drag and grow taught, tugging against his joints.

"I have not heard your questions yet."

"Fair enough." The truth will be more effective than a lie. "I want to know about Operation: Orphan. I was told that you remember it."

He nods. It is difficult to gauge his age just from reading his grizzled skin. The weather has beaten him senseless on more than one occasion, and the gnarled locks hanging from his face conceal enough of him that she can only guess within a range of five to ten years, but she is sure that he is not much older than sixty. His records have mostly been redacted, but there is no mention of The Wolf Spider before 1975. It is important to establish a timeline of events. The wind brushes against her cheeks.

"Tell me."

He coughs.

"It was us. My brothers and I. Only one other survived the program, and he was killed, later. Why do you want to know?"

He is expecting an answer. She has always been honest with her sisters. She thinks her brother is owed the same courtesy. 

"I have been told to end it." She swallows. "I made a promise."

He chuckles.

"That is good. It is time for that program to die."

Natasha lets out a breath.

"But you're sure it began here? As part of Department X?" She remembers the words James muttered, hollow in the locker room. _The reproduction of the Orphan Project will be a great service to Hydra_. What use would Hydra have with an abandoned Department X program? If all the subjects were terminated, their practical use must have been too limited. There is still so much darkness stretching ahead of her, there is still so much time, and Constantin is willing to talk.

"We were stationed in the cold." He makes a grinding noise in his throat, couching up phlegum. "And they couldn't rewrite us yet." He spits. "That came later." He eyes her. "If that's what you were worried about."

Intact memories. Interesting that no one thought to rewrite him after the technology was perfected. Interesting, but not relevant. 

"So Operation: Orphan was a replication program. Of what?"

Constantin swallows.

"I only saw him once." His voice sounds like gravel. "He had a metal arm."

Natasha begins to feel the cold, but she doesn't let her discomfort at the temperature alter her expression. 

"That is easy enough to track," she dismisses the subject. "And what of this other brother? You said there was one more that survived the training?"

Constantin inhales through his teeth, wheezing.

"Come closer."

She smirks.

"Rather not."

His laughter snaps through the cold.

"You know why they call me the Wolf? Still? Even now?"

She had not cared. She waits for him to continue.

"It is because I bite." He snaps his teeth. "I am thirsty for flesh and skin."

Natasha grunts.

"I assume they made you that way?"

His head jerks as he nods.

"We tore apart the weaker ones, he and I. Only the strong survive." He takes a gulp of air, eyes closed. "They tasted delicious."

She waits until he shakes himself out of his reverie before she presses him.

"Why was he killed, instead of being brought here?"

He rolls his shoulders.

"After all we survived together, he was indestructible. The only way to destroy us was death. There was no pain or suffering that would have any relevance for us." He sighs like a howl. "Alexei disobeyed. His weakness meant destruction. He had to be deactivated."

She inhales.

"In Pripyat. That's where you were stationed."

He hones his clod gaze on her.

"Yes," his voice rumbles. "We were both there."

The wind bites, nipping at her clothes. 

"They moved the program to Haeju afterwards. It's how I know."

"They began again with you." He clicks his tongue against his teeth. "I was there, at the beginning. They used me, and then sent me here, where I was not a _threat_ ," he hisses on the last word. "I remember." He eyes her. "But you should not. They would have written over you."

She hums.

"The rewriting isn't as permanent as it seems." She cracks her knuckles. "What my mind forgot, my body remembers." She bites the corner of her lip. "I just needed to find ways to prompt it."

"Clever girl." He swallows. "Alexei had some of the original genetic material. They pinned their hopes to him. And he failed them."

She knows this, because James told her, and it was contained in the Moranbong chapter. But the information has context now. Alexei Shostakov is not just a name she remembers from a promise that was made for her; he is not just a memory she has been forced to forget. He was a replica of the greatest soldier, the one the Russians created, before they shipped him off to America and the Cold War split Hydra in two. Department X was born in that schism, and Natalia Romanov was one of its finest assets. 

It is becoming clearer why James insisted she discover her own story before she dismantles Orphan. These stories are too close together. The information feels like it is closing in. 

"Is there any more you can tell me?" Cassandra was right. "The mission head?" Of course Hydra will try to replicate the Orphan project, it's what they wanted from the start. "The names associated with the program?" A super soldier that obeys.  "Any kill orders you had?" The original Orphan project has been a success for almost seventy years. 

Constantin sucks on his lower lip.

"Anything I know." He shakes his head. "All of it is decades old. If Operation: Orphan is important again, nothing else I know will be of any use anymore."

They will have changed locations. Of course.

"Very well then." She stands. "A knife or a bullet?"

He offers her a crooked grin.

"If you shoot me, you'll have to run."

She takes out her gun, aiming for the space between his eyes by instinct alone.

"Is that your choice?"

He wets his lips and releases a shaking, rattling breath.

"You offer me a choice." His throat trembles. "Thank you. Yes. The gun, please."

She shoots him. His blood paints the snow, bright red and slippery, coating the harsh white ground. It catches the starlight. Constantin's body slumps forward, and the choker impales his neck. Blood leaks, swaying in the wind, but he is quiet. She can hear the sound of the alarm. Gunfire? So far out here? The guards assume there has been an incident with a prisoner, they will need to account for one another. She will not give them a chance to find her.

She runs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief mention of cannibalism there- sorry. 
> 
> In unrelated news there's an 8tracks playlist if you want to know what I listened to while writing. https://8tracks.com/shannonxl/the-pinocchio-illusion


	22. Projectile

Natasha arrives in London with three hours to spare. She still smells like her travels when she boards the train in Paris; she locks her cabin door and uses the trip to reset her disguise and mask some of the smells under the scent of soap and antibacterial. It will hold up, though not under close examination. She constructs her outfit accordingly; graduate student, thick glasses, the novel tucked under her arm suggests a social sciences degree. She makes herself look surly and unfashionable enough that no one will ask.

When Natasha arrives, she secures the perimeter, walking around their meet up location until she is sure that there is no one following her. No one is monitoring it, and there's nothing hostile within a thirty mile radius.

If Hydra plans to replicate him, it would be useful for her to take him in. It would prevent them from carrying out their plan. Unless they already have the necessary information to implement a full rewrite. Then it will be useless to detain him. It will only call attention to his absence when he misses a check-in. And it will mean that James will cease to be a source of information. And the burden of caring for a captive will be a distraction. She doesn't have the resources to pull off something so complicated, not in Europe. Not worth it.

The burden of handling him while he shadows her is... a problem, but there are advantages. Make the enemy believe they have you. That you can't escape. Use their surety to your advantage. Sustain damage, yes, be inconvenienced, just enough to fool them. You can take it. You will survive this. It is a tactic that has worked for her many times. She knows how to look weak, how to be humble in the face of one's enemies. She has learned how to cry. Allowing him to report on her will give her a tactical advantage, as long as she does not let it slip into defeat in ernest. It is a difficult line to walk, but she is, after all, a professional.

Decision made, she arrives early.

He is already there, a few blocks away. Bearded and dusty, she is sure that he does not see her until she arrives at their rendezvous point. Disguised as a homeless beggar, clever. Hand-drawn sign informs disinterested passers-by that he is a veteran in need of food. He collects pity, but little else. He is easy to ignore, slumped against the sidewalk. He stands up twenty minutes before their agreed-upon meeting time, disappearing into the shadows. She marks him, tracking his progress around the densely packed restaurants and retail stores. She hears him climbing the fire escape behind her, and leans over the edge. His metal fingers grind against the guardrails, and he ignores her proffered hand, hoisting himself over the edge of the roof without assistance.

"I found this." He opens his palm, baring the bloody plastic tube she'd watched him bury underneath his skin. "I recognized your handwriting." James grimaces. "What am I here for?"

His voice is raspy and deep. The muscles in his arm twitch. More information necessary.

"What would you like me to call you?"

He blinks.

"It is irrelevant."

She swallows. Thorough wipe then.

"How long have you been following me?"

The Soldier winces.

"I have been instructed not to disclose that information."

She narrows her eyes.

"But do you _know_? Can you remember?"

He grits his teeth, and shakes his head. Natasha unzips her hoodie, turning around. She tugs at the front of her shirt, baring the space between her shoulder blades. The skin there is pink and new, all traces of infection are gone. But the scar will still be fresh, sinking into her body, for another week or so.

"I got this in North Korea. You and I were there together." She resets her cover, facing him again. "We discussed the discoveries you made there, but not mine. And several weeks ago, you asked me to stop Operation: Orphan in exchange for information about the Bolshoi." His expression is blank, but he's listening. "Soldier?"

His head jerks and he stares at her.

"Yes."

"Is that still your wish?"

His lips part on a heavy sigh. " _Yes_ ," he croaks.

Useful. He's been wiped, but the impulse to betray his handlers has carried through. This is the kind of problem the переписывать program was designed to prevent. She wonders, briefly, why it was never used on him. Perhaps his handlers didn't notice. Perhaps he is more adept at concealing parts of himself than he appears. He has already learned how to hide memories, bury them so deep they can't be erased. Maybe this determination to eliminate Operation: Orphan is buried somewhere, too. The thought makes her want to search him. She will have to create the opportunity.

"Destroy the original model." He whispers. "It..." he swallows. "Nothing else will work."

She nods.

"I understand."

He stares at her, eyes watering.

"You do?"

"I do."

He releases a breath.

"Then all that is left is the Bolshoi." He looks up at her. "That must be done first."

She has an idea.

"Is that why you're tailing me?"

He blinks. Too broad, of course.

"I know you came to me to ask for my help. But the last time we met, you told me you would be reporting on me. Is that why? Does it have something to do with the Bolshoi?"

He chokes before answering.

"I. This is a trial."

Natasha remembers the trials. She remembers the lessons, too.

"Whose?" She hisses.

He shakes his head.

"Unclear."

She crosses her arms.

"And the other combatants?"

His eyes are hooded by the shadowy sunlight.

"There is only one."

Her muscles feel loose and elastic.

"You?"

He backs away from her.

"No. A woman. Like you." He blinks. "I was told you faced her once already."

Nefertiti. Natasha had thought- she had hoped.

"She's one of theirs then. Department X."

He nods.

"And they've taken over your care?"

His eye twitches.

"I am a weapon. I am not cared for."

"They are your handlers now? They've adopted you?"

He shrugs. She presses.

"Are they the ones giving your orders?"

He hesitates before nodding. Natasha flexes her fingers.

"So they are putting me on trail. Why? Why now?"

He struggles.

"I," gasps, "I _can't_ , please-"

Conditioning is too thorough. She will find ways around it.

"Is any of it related to the North Institute, or are they acting independently?"

He gnaws on his bottom lip.

"This is not a name I know."

Fine. One problem at a time. She can investigate the North Institute later. Cassandra is making too much noise about them now anyway. The important players will all be underground. The woman plays 'disgruntled suburban housewife' with more skill than Natasha would have reckoned on. It's disconcerting.

"Are you going to take me to him?"

The Soldier is shuddering. It isn't cold, and his clothing is sufficient. Fear. He is doing his best to conceal a terror response, but his lips are drawn tight, and his muscles are tense. _Him_. He means Rogers. There is no one else that matters this much.

"No." He relaxes a fraction. "It wouldn't be practical," she concludes. "We still have to find the Bolshoi," she winks.

His breathing evens out.

"I think I have another one." He clutches his stomach. "I can feel something. Hurts."

She nods.

"Do you want help?"

"Please?"

She directs him to sit down, standing behind him. She presses her palm against his shoulder to warn him before she wraps her other hand around his head. His shoulders twitch and tense, and his right arm is shaking, but he forces himself to remain still as she sticks her fingers in his mouth and down his throat. His gag reflex is insensitive, but she engages the muscles and his body's natural response does the rest. Whimpering, the Soldier falls forwards, landing on his palms. She lets him, rubbing his back like she remembers is comforting. He heaves, retching the contents of his stomach. Natasha detects a mild bleach in the liquid, slow-release. The kind of thing that would be an irritant for a super-soldier, and not a debilitating poison. Clever. She searches until she sees a small capsule. She picks it up.

"It has my name on it."

"Not for me then," he gasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Seems like an odd place to leave a valentine, lover."

He coughs, clearing his throat.

"Are we?"

She shakes her head.

"No." Natasha opens the capsule. There's a note crumbled up inside it. "Trust me, I'd make sure you remembered something that important."

"Hm." He leans back on his hands while she reads. "I write anything good?"

She smirks at him.

"Don't give up your day job, let's leave it at that."

He grunts.

"What is it?"

"Coordinates." She crumbles the paper. _I can betray my orders if I don't remember doing it_. Clever. It might be a trap. It might be another part of the trial. But she doubts it. Their handlers never let them carry secrets like this. She was taught how to leak information, how to pretend to be giving herself away unwittingly. It never went like this. This was a skill she learned on her own, when she didn't know if she'd been training for a week or a year, because every day was the same. She had begun by testing the length of her hair. She nearly cried the first time they took it away, but she restrained herself. Tears were not important to them then. They were not useful. She had kept cuts on her thighs, but they healed too quickly, and never left scars. She found ways to track the days. The pain in her knees. The little stones she would hide underneath her toenails. The Soldier learned the same trade. This is his work, for better or for worse.

_James_.

His signature is his name.

"It appears we're going south."


	23. Latent

They travel together. It is simpler that way. Faster.

"You know, our paths intersected."

He is cleaning knives in the passenger seat.

"When?"

"Do you know the name Alexei Shostakov?"

His face is clear, but she catches the sound of his indrawn breath over the noise of the street and the blare of the radio. He doesn't speak. 

"He was the first Operation: Orphan subject, wasn't he? Him, and a few others."

"You know him?"

She shrugs.

"I was supposed to marry him, in Russia. Something changed."

He stares at the space in front of him, empty air. She waits.

"Alexei is my son." He stumbles over the words, as if he is learning this fact, not for the first time, but the third, or fourth. He doesn't sound sure as the car lurches forwards, Natasha changes gears and presses onward. It appears that Constantin wasn't lying about Alexei's genetic material belonging to the Soldier.

This clarifies a few things for her. Hydra has been trying to replicate their success with the Soldier for decades, of this she is sure. Now, she knows that she needs to target the blueprints for the Hydra super soldier program: all of them. She will need to confirm that there are no more copies of Zola preserved in databases and separate systems. And she will need to look for any more samples taken from the Soldier during his internment.

The reports of Alexei's death appear accurate, but she should find his body, just to be sure.

"You knew him," the Soldier sounds hollow, and parched.

"You should drink." She points her elbow at the bottled water in the armrest between them. "In a way. I knew about him. Is that what you mean?"

He blinks, and looks out the window.

"He is my son," he whispers, and leaves it at that.

Natasha lets him consider this information. It seems significant to him. She rinses her mouth with peroxide, spitting out the window. Her tooth is still sore. Six miles until they reach the arms dealer. Then, cross the Mediterranean. Acquire a vehicle. Pay in cash. Drive.

* * *

She intends to go into the compound alone.

This is her plan because there is no other option. If there is any chance that the Soldier's orders will override his wishes, she cannot guarantee his safety if it happens inside. And she does not want to kill him. Natasha doesn't give herself time to consider this.

"I won't-" he cuts himself off. "I am the mission supervisor here." His voice rumbles. "There won't be any orders."

She thinks the chances are slim, decides against renaming him Mission Supervisor, and informs him that she will strangle him with his own intestines if he's not waiting for her when she gets out. She makes sure she delivers this like a joke, but he doesn't laugh or smile. Too soon then. It takes time for the humor response to return.

Their camp is just outside the radar range, which means her walk is long. Fortunate that the target is surrounded by rocky hills; she can hide herself easily inside the rough terrain. Dry, sandy earth rumbles and cracks beneath her boots. Her skin burns. She takes shifting, light steps, not leaving behind footprints. The sun overhead bleaches her surroundings, making everything turn bright and searing. Far away, the heat will disguise her movements, make her look like an illusion. Conditions like this are favorable.

The compound is well-guarded, better than the one in Haeju. The guards are armed with serious weapons, and she can tell by the way they walk that they actually know how to use them. Their movements are randomized. Unlikely she can take advantage of a gap when it is impossible to predict when one will appear. All deliveries are inspected, through multiple layers of security. Staff members are identified and weighed when they enter or exit. Natasha spends an hour watching the facility, using the natural landscape as a cover.

She determines her best option, and moves.

She chooses the most vulnerable part of the fence, short-circuiting it. Then, she runs. While alarms are blaring, she circles the base, scaling the rocks beside the fence. Natasha leaps, grabbing the fence. She lets her cuff absorb the worst of the shock as she flips over it, landing on the other side. She removes the broken cuff, throwing it at the first guard she sees. Nosebleed, not incapacitating. Another guard fires at her, and she bolts. Plenty of them are distracted by her diversion, but there are several in the area she's landed in. All she needs to do is take the guns out of the equation.

She uses shock grenades on the first guards, and they crumble before they can fire. Her gun is already in her hand by the time three more arrive, responding to the commotion. One is reaching for his radio, and she lets him, shooting the other two. Lethal, head shots, fast. The call for backup is complete. She pretends she doesn't understand Urdu. Natasha vaults off the wall of a storage container, landing on the man's shoulders. She uses the momentum to shove him to the ground, rolling. He coughs up dirt, swatting away her gun. She takes the opening he gives her, and kicks him in the face. She hears the message broadcast through the speaker in his ear, dislodged by her attack. His support is coming, sixty meters west of their location.

Grabbing the man by the collar, she drags him with her. She heads west.

Bright lights flare up the second she's surrounded. An attempt to blind her, partially successful. She can still see fifteen meters in front of her. Natasha holds her gun to her hostage's temple. They will shoot her if they have to. They will sacrifice him if they have to. She will not make them have to.

"I'm looking for Alexei Shostakov!" She shouts, in English. A few of them understand. None of them react to the name. It doesn't matter. It's not a real demand. "I know that you have him!" She ignores the three soldiers coming up behind her, anticipates the sting of the shock baton seconds before it hits her. She and her hostage both go down. Natasha chokes on earth and struggles while they grab her and bind her arms behind her. The bonds are tight, the ropes professional-grade. The adrenaline makes her fingers twitch. Two men hoist her into the air, and she sways. The shock is still coursing through her system, and the pace they set is nauseating. She lets her head loll forwards, observing everything.

Thirty guards. No prominent display of rank, but she can pinpoint who the leaders are by the way the rest defer to them. The buildings are small, which she has already observed. The site is laid out on a grid. Up close, she can see that the different doors are marked only by numbers. Natasha has predicted that they are all connected by a series of tunnels beneath the surface. A few more steps, and she is proven correct. She is dragged to a door marked 'seventeen'. The sentry at the door has already been alerted, and he lets them in with only a cursory glance at the guards' identification badges. Easy.

The light underground is dim, but she absorbs everything she needs. The smells of a large kitchen. More food than the staff alone would require. The common smells of humanity, but underneath it is something bitter. The floor beneath her is worn smooth. The walls are coated with industrial cleaner. She doesn't need to see them to know that this place is crowded with little soldiers.

The room they bring her to is sterile. She forces them to shock her again before she will be restrained. They strap her to the wall, and adjust the cuffs around her wrists so that she is suspended just on the verge of dangerously uncomfortable. Hands over her head, toes scraping the floor. Natasha swallows. Her mouth is bloody but she forces everything down _...from hurting_ \- no time. She puts on a performance of labored breathing, displaying the toll her treatment has taken on her body. They disarm her, of course, inspecting her weapons. They miss four of the knives on her person, and one of the grenades. And they make the mistake of piling her arsenal up, leaving it in the room with her. The first guard shouts at her, and she continues to pretend not to understand. He makes the usual threats and demands. She makes her eyes go wide and shakes her head, blubbering, "I don't understand, I don't know..." They confer, agree to get a translator. That will bring their number down to two. It will still be prudent to wait, hear what they discuss. She wants names, or code names at least. Trainers. Targets.

Before he leaves, the guard punches her in the face, and then the gut. She lets them hear it, unlocking her vocal chords. He leaves, making a sour face at her over his shoulder.

The guards are on the alert, as they should be. Their discussion is thin and pragmatic. No information. She will have to wait.

A translator arrives after twenty-six minutes. He stands outside the door for another thirty. Putting her on edge, or attempting to. Make her nervous, more likely to talk. In the meantime, she can hear the shift change going on above her, and the march happening down the hall. She will have to make a few calls in order to effect a satisfactory shut down of the facility. One of her guards is carrying a cellular phone. Crucial failure to obey protocol. With any luck, she might not even need to go above ground to get service. Plenty of satellites in the neighborhood.

When the translator opens the door, he has a bottle of water and two extra guards with him. None of them have given any indication that they recognize her face, but she expects it to happen soon enough. Not a problem. She has anticipated this possibility. If anything, knowing who she is will make them careless. They will be proud that they've caught her, and forget that spiders aren't the ones that get caught. The translator smiles at her, the kind of soulless, perfunctory smile she's used herself. There is no reason to pretend the proceedings will be pleasant. The smile is merely a professional courtesy.

"We weren't expecting any visitors today, you'll have to forgive our enthusiasm. Water?"

She accepts it, lets him raise the bottle to her lips, lets the water trickle through her teeth. Natasha swishes, then spits it out, dousing the translators face. There's blood mixed in with the water and spit. His reaction is minimal; her response was expected. He reaches behind him, one of the guards is ready with a towel. He dries his face, not looking away from her.

"One strike."

A different guard prods her in the abdomen, sending a cold, low dose shock through her body. It aches, and she doesn't hold back a cry. They don't even blink at her theatrics.

"Now." The translator hands the towel to the guard waiting behind him. "My companions have some questions you need to answer. How did you find this place?"

So it goes. How did you find this place what are you doing here where are the others did you come here alone. They change the order, switch a few of the words, but the questions are the same. What are you doing here did you come here alone who told you about this place what did you hope to find here. They follow a predictable pattern of question-shock-question. Rinse and repeat. And in the meantime, she is listening. There is a central command station a few meters away. She knows because a guard makes his report over a radio, and the response is full of telling background noise. She hears the orders: keep pressing, no sympathy, break her thoroughly, predictable. The commander is careless, and leaves the command center to walk through the base. His footsteps echo just outside her door. She has been given a location.

They switch to water boarding after twenty-six minutes. During the time it takes them to gather the supplies, she recognizes the thunder of almost thirty perfectly matched marching little feet. Shift change. Duplicates. One of the guards whispers about her eyes, how creepy it is to see a look like theirs in a fully grown adult. Natasha hadn't been counting on the eerie familiarity. She knows that if she had to choose, she would leave that one alive to lead her through the facility. Water fills her senses. She doesn't think it will be necessary. Not now that she knows for sure what they're guarding, and where they are, and she can hazard a guess at their age based on the weight of their footsteps. Still salvageable. That's how old they are.

Just a few more details and these men will all be disposable...

They are discussing the best way to avoid permanent damage (unnecessary waste of time, they clearly haven't been trained in the correct torture protocols) when the door opens again. The guard with the baton is shot down first. His brethren follow him within an eye blink. Natasha swings her legs up, wrapping her ankles around the neck of the translator. She slams his face into the wall beneath her, and uses the momentum to snap the restraints around her wrists. She flips and lands on her feet. The last guard is choking on the bullet in his throat. Natasha glares up at the Soldier.

"I almost had everything I needed!"

He swallows, not holstering his gun. He hadn't bothered with a disguise; he's still wearing the mercenary-grade khakis she got for him on their way to the site.

"I remembered something."

"Close the door." He twitches, as if he'd forgotten where they were, and swings the door shut heavily behind him. Natasha glares. "What did you _remember_?"

His eyes flicker, absorbing the contents of the room, the extent of her injuries. She can see him reviewing the information, can sense the way his heart accelerates to compliment the escalating pace of his breathing.

"What did they do to you?"

"They were giving me _everything_ ," she hisses. Water drips down her cheeks. It pools at her feet, diluting the flood of bloody stains. Then, "how did you get in?"

The Soldier shrugs.

"It's what I remembered." He looks up at the ceiling. "I was in charge here." He shrugs. "So. I just walked in through the front door, and asked where you were."

Natasha grits her teeth.

"You asked for me by _name_?"

His eyes grow wide, showing the whites around his deep blue irises.

"No! I realized you'd been..." his gaze shifts away from her. "I didn't realize you'd done it on purpose."

Natasha sheds the wreckage of the cuffs around her wrists, letting them clatter to the floor. She begins to reload her weapons, taking stock of every one, even though they never left her sight. Her fingers know the routine. She watches the Soldier instead.

"So what now?"

He blinks.

"What?"

"Are you going to stop me?" She turns on him. "That's the reason you addressed your message to me, right? You can betray your orders if you don't remember them." She makes sure that her tone is light, not adversarial. The Soldier is agitated. She can use it to her advantage, if she has to. But. It will be more convenient if...

"Is this." The muscles in his throat shift. "Is this it?"

She leaves a few of her knives out on the table. Easy to reach, so close to her hands.

"I was going to make a few calls. Shut this place down."

He closes his eyes, breathing.

"Shut down."

He's too still.

"Soldier!"

He opens his eyes, pupils dilated, they shrink the second the light hits them. He's gasping.

"You can't call him!"

She picks up one of her knives. Unsheathed. He doesn't seem to notice. He clutches his head, thumbs digging into his temples, hands getting tangled up in his ragged hair.

"I can do it! I can disobey! I can! But you can't call him! I can't do it if he's here!" He stares at her, pleading. "It has to be you. That's why we're here."

Everything about him is erratic.

"Why are we here, Soldier? Why do you need me?"

He shakes his head, fingers tearing at his skin. He breathes through the gaps between his teeth. "I can't." He tears the words out of his chest. "I can't." He slumps over, and she can see the uneven convulsions wracking his body as he tries to breathe. There is sweat all over his bared skin. These are all the symptoms of a panic attack. She waits while he struggles with himself, until he visibly forces a sense of calm to overwhelm his senses.

"But if you see." He swallows. "I can make it so you have to see." His lips offer her a crooked smile. "I can do that."

She crosses her arms.

"What did you want me to find here, Soldier?" There's something else, there has to be. Something else she hasn't discovered yet, some other reason he brought her here. She should be here to shut down Operation: Orphan. He can disobey orders if he doesn't remember that he's doing it. He's been ordered to lead her to the Bolshoi first. But this struggle is something else. Something harder. She adopts a tone of command. "You have to remember."

"I am remembering." He winces. "We need to move."

She could have told him that. Too long without a check-in. If she were in charge she'd assume that the hostage was long gone by now. The Soldier is straightening, readjusting his posture.

"You said you're the mission supervisor here." She feels something like certainty when he looks at her face. "I assume that means you know how to shut this place down."

His head jerks. A nod.

"We have to move."

Natasha puts away her knife, and follows him.

The Soldier closes the door and takes the doorknob with him, mangling it in his metal palm. She hears two guards behind them and her gun is in her hand and she fires two shots before she has to think. The Soldier barely looks at the corpses as he steps over them. There are no alarms going off, but that won't last long. Too many patrols and check-ins, but Natasha was prepared to resolve this issue alone. The added difficulty of monitoring the Soldier shouldn't be too much trouble. Especially since he must know this building intimately.

He leads her to the fire stairwell, disabling the alarm on autopilot. Three levels below. The air stinks of earth and sweat. The artificial lights are designed to look like sunlight, glowing slanted through barred windows close to the ceiling. Natasha is sure that the lights are designed to shift depending on the time of day. She wonders who else knows this, if the little training soldiers know the difference, if they can remember seeing the real thing.

Something about the thought tastes bitter to her.

"Ahead."

The lights in the next room have been turned down. Artificial night. She can feel the weight of water beneath her feet. A fail-safe. There's a damn underneath the facility, and in an emergency it will break and destroy everything above it. Natasha can feel the pressure this far underground, her ears respond though the rest of her adjusts. The Soldier leads, and she follows. She has a gun in each hand and they feel warm and solid in her palms. She knows she has plenty of bullets. She knows what to do if she runs out. The walls are familiar but she knows they are not what she remembers. The pressure above and below her dictate that she is in a new place, that it is not somewhere she knows. The walls curve and the corridors shift in a way she can't predict. Because she has never been here before. The nostalgia she feels is a lie.

The cells are different, too. They've been redeveloped. Instead of closed, cramped rooms or wide halls with rows of beds, there are double beds. Three walls, and one row of bars. Cast-iron, she thinks. Or something stronger, made to look like it. Everything would need to be impervious to rust.

The Soldier is still in front of her. She stares at his back as he slaughters three handlers. Not the best-equipped, probably still trainees themselves. No match for the Soldier. Left to guard the youngest, the most fragile, the easiest to intimidate. The Soldier pauses by the door ahead of them, tearing open a panel in the wall. Natasha guards his six while he works, disconnecting wires and reprogramming the security system.

There is a little boy, wide awake while the others are all asleep. He is standing by the bars, watching her. No, he's reaching for her. She assumes that he is about five or six years old, calculating for malnutrition and exertion and the other million factors she can read so clearly in the way he stands so still. She presses her fingers in between the bars, and he wraps his dark little hand around hers. Natasha almost recoils, surprised by how warm his touch is. Unexpected. She leans in closer. He looks up at her. His eyes are green.

The Soldier opens the door in front of him, and the sounds of death feel far away. He doesn't need her help, and she doesn't want to leave, not yet. She crouches down low, staring at the child. There are callouses on his fingers, and his knuckles are raw and bloody. He is so calm, undisturbed by their intrusion. They might be there to release him, or kill him, and he has not made a sound. Natasha remembers what it was like not to care. His fingers are so small in her hand.

She can hear the Soldier finishing. She knows without needing to inspect that he did all his killing with his hands. She didn't hear him draw any weapons. Natasha doesn't remember observing any of it.

She forces the boy to let go.

She keeps moving forward.

* * *

 They reach the command terminal and dispatch the guards first. Fifteen of them, not prepared for an internal assault. Natasha goes left and the Soldier goes right, and they leave a swathe of carnage behind them. The people stationed at the terminals are next. They're armed, but not well-versed in weaponry. A few of them plead. Not with the Soldier, they know well enough to run from him. But a few seek sympathy from her. Natasha makes sure she shoots them quickly. The sound of begging is repulsive. She meets the Soldier in the middle of the room. Thirty-seven bodies surround them.

"I'll get the door," she doesn't wait for him to agree.

"I'll begin the process."

Natasha pauses when she reaches the door. She barricades it, but once they're secure, her fingers forget what they need to do. Shaking herself, she checks her guns. In good order, she reloads while she has the time.

She should call Steve. Rescuing a bunch of child soldiers feels like it's up Captain America's alley.

She glances up at the Soldier. His face is lit up by the computer screen. She'll wait.

"Soldier."

"Almost finished." He glances at her, his fingers moving across the keyboard without needing to be monitored. "You have blood on your face."

Her left eyebrow curls upwards.

"I have blood everywhere."

The Soldier shrugs, turning back to the screen.

"None of the data stored here was connected to a network. Protocol. There are defenses to prevent anyone from taking it off-site."

Natasha leans over his shoulder, staring at his work.

"Have you-"

"I can override it."

She recognizes the password he uses.

"Why are you-"

"This was his program." The Soldier straightens, glancing at the door. "They're coming for us."

Natasha grabs his wrist, pressing against his tendon.

"They'll be easy to handle." She yanks on his arm until he looks down at her. "How long were you taking orders from Secretary Pierce?"

His lips curl.

"You know him."

She glares up at him.

An alarm cuts her off. The Soldier backs away, out of her grip. If this place belonged to Pierce, then the design was given to him by- not the time. Natasha scans the computer display. The data transfer is almost complete. Outside the door, their assailants sound distracted. The alarm isn't for intrudors. She looks up at the Soldier. His skin is pale.

"What did you do."

He swallows.

"You said it needed to be done."

Shut it down. Natasha grits her teeth.

"Tell me how."

The Soldier isn't looking at her.

"I activated the flood protocol. All of the evidence will be buried." His eyes twitch into focus, landing on the flash drive he's loaded the stolen files onto. "I saved that for you. But everything else has to be shut down."

The data is taking too long. They'll be able to escape with it, but there will be no time left for anything else. Natasha scowls, heart beating against her breastbone. She collects two extra guns from the guards at her feet, stepping around the bloody desks and the wreckage of the control room. She begins kicking away the debris she'd used to barricade the door, the only way back into the compound. The Soldier gapes at her, torn between the streaming data and her movements.

"Why are you-"

"You'll be able to exit through the ceiling. I'll meet you outside. The hills sixty meters northeast. Go back to the campsite if you're spotted. Leave no survivors."

She doesn't wait for him to argue. The door is clear, and she opens it, slamming it against the wall. She shoots at the first movement she sees, a frantic patrolman running for the exit. He falls and she keeps moving. There are flashing lights overhead and the sound of sirens filling up the wide halls. Natasha doesn't hide around corners. There's no point in stealth or silence now. She has a gun in each hand and she holds them up high, running when her path is clear, shooting and kicking and slamming her shoulders into jaws and necks when it's not. She remembers where she's going. She wants to get there in time.

The cells are unguarded. Of course they are. These assets are a low priority. Still in the early stages of training, more of them can be made. They are all awake now, standing and screaming and bawling behind the bars. A few are grappling with one another, scratching and biting like wild animals. Others are tearing at the cages, searching for escape. She sees a set of familiar green eyes and remembers a scar across the belly and a sharp pain in her thigh, and remembers like a fresh magazine clicking into place.

There's a rumbling beneath her feet, and the bars will be programmed independent of one another. She will have to disable them all individually. It will take time. She feels the floor breaking underneath her before she can begin, and there is no more time left. The concrete opens, jagged empty spaces opening and spreading. Water trickles through the widening gaps in the floor. Cries transform into violent rage-filled roars all around her, and Natasha does the first thing she can think of; she shoots at the vulnerable points in the cages, thinking that if she can just loosen the joints she can give them an opening. It's not efficient. The water level is rising, and it's acidic, she can feel it as it eats away at her boots. They are watching her, all of them, yelling in languages she knows she understands. She's run out of bullets, and she tosses her guns at the metal bars, and reaches for her backups, and it doesn't look like the bullets have made enough of a dent in the metal, but there's still time, it's still worth trying-

She feels mismatched hands wrap around her waist, and she thinks she should have made the call.

The Soldier drags her out, carries her, and her fingers remember the proper trigger etiquette, her hands find targets, and they make it outside. There are plenty of vehicles to steal, and they choose the most rugged option without communicating. The Soldier shoves her behind the wheel and her fist finds the gearshift and her feet find the pedals and the Soldier is covering their retreat with weapons he took from the compound and Natasha drives through the fence and doesn't stop. Above them, the survivors are making an aerial retreat, and she can hear the missiles screaming overhead to finish what the Soldier started. She accelerates, and the terrain beneath them is jarring, and there's no pursuit, just the heat as the missile strikes, obliterating everything.

She feels her voice shaking in her chest.

"You got everything?"

The Soldier drops the flash drive in her lap.

"Everything."

She can feel him looking at her, but she can't look back. She knows if she does, she won't see _his_ face, because she can feel the memory threatening to overcome her. _Sometimes we do bad things, but we always do them for good reasons_. It's the sensation of a hand on her cheek, kind and soft, and it's the smell of bodies burning behind her, and the gnawing ache of hunger deep inside her belly. She coughs, trying to startle the sensations out of her. There's a pack if cigarettes on the dashboard. She reaches for them, slipping one between her lips. The Soldier watches her.

"I don't have any matches."

Natasha snarls at him between clenched teeth. She rolls down her window, firing a gun up at the empty sky. She lights the cigarette on the heat of the barrel.

"They not have boy scouts where you come from?" He indicates that he doesn't know what to say to that, a furtive twitch of the muscles on the side of his face. She leers sideways at him. "Always be prepared?"

He shrugs.

"Left most of my gear behind when I came to get you."

Natasha inhales, swallowing smoke. She can taste the nicotine in the back of her throat. It settles her blood.

"And what did we learn about following orders?"

The Soldier glares out the window.

"You're not my handler."

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"That's not what we learned."

"I don't have to follow orders from you-"

"I was handling it!"

The cigarette falls out of her mouth, burning in her lap.

"I was going to get everyone out alive." She sniffs, her nose feels congested. "I was going to do the right goddamn thing." She sucks the lining of her cheeks between her teeth, gnawing on her skin. "But I suppose you think you did that for a good reason." Natasha swallows. "All that information. Lost."

The Soldier reaches over to her lap. He lifts up the cigarette, and she opens her lip to accept it. She inhales, lets the smoke trail out through her nose. He's still watching her.

"I was doing what was necessary."

She has nothing left to say to that.

"Do you understand now?"

"Do I understand _what_?" Her neck snaps when she looks at him. The road is unpaved underneath them and she keeps their course in her periphery. His throat is working as his lips form aborted words, strangling sentences before they're fully born. The rest of his body is perfectly still. She can wait all day if she has to.

"I can't."

"Soldier."

" _Please_. Stop. Calling me that." He looks up at her with watery blue eyes. "My name is James. Call me that, if you have to call me anything."

"You told me that before." She scans him. "You don't remember. A few days ago you didn't care." He winces. "How long as it been since they wiped you?"

He grits his teeth.

"Whenever I left. After we." He chokes. "I don't remember seeing you before. I read my report." He takes a constrained breath. "It would have been after DC. I sent you on an errand. As soon as I knew it was done, I went back."

She nods.

"You told me to-"

"Don't _tell_ me," he rasps.

"You're planning on going back then?"

He swallows.

"I don't have a choice."

She snorts.

"You always have a choice. No matter how hard they try to take it away from you."

James growls. "Did Pierce teach you that?"

"Maybe he did." She glances between him and the road. "Why do you care?"

His breath is ragged.

"What did he do to you?"

Her lips curl.

"Be careful. If you ask me nicely I might just tell you."

He grabs her arm. "Natasha-"

She swerves, pulling her arm out of his grasp. The car spins, kicking up dusty earth under the grumbling tires. She brakes. She breathes.

"I took orders from him. I know." James sighs. "I know what he was like." He pauses. "He could be kind."

She feels cold. There's no reason for her to feel cold. The sun is overhead, it's barely past midday, and there's a cigarette burning close to her lips. The ashes are crumbling onto her chest.

"You're right James." She presses her foot against the gas pedal. The car rumbles into motion again. "He could be." No one else seems to understand that.


	24. Complex

Hours later, they feel safe enough to rest. They'd passed several other locations without discussion. Too close to the op site. They circle the perimeter of the safe house together, even though it is inefficient. James is looking at her more than he is searching for the usual dangers. There are a few opportunities for a sniper to set up and take aim, and Natasha sabotages them as best she can. She checks for land mines and other traps. She sets up a few protections of her own. At least they'll have warning if someone is stupid enough to try and take them both.

James doesn't speak again until they're inside.

"He modeled the program after you."

Natasha sits down across from him, her back to the reinforced wall.

"What program?"

His eyes twitch towards the smoking crater they left behind. Natasha nods.

"Ah."

It makes sense. He recruited her, used her skills, of course he wanted to duplicate them. When he closed the rift between Hydra and Department X, it would have made sense to incorporate her training into the Orphan program. It's the decision she would have made with that set of circumstances.

"Are you hungry?"

He shrugs.

"Doesn't matter."

She points at the cupboards.

"There's food. We both need some."

He nods, but he doesn't budge from where he's standing in the doorway, twitchy and awkward and too big for his surroundings.

"Why do you care so much?" She watches him, and now he tries to avoid looking at her, like he's been caught. "Is it just Op: Orphan? Or is there something else?"

He struggles for a few seconds before answering.

"I need to help you find the Bolshoi. I need to lead you there."

It's no more than she expected, but it's disappointing anyway. It's as close to an honest answer as he's able to give her. She leans back against the wall, pressing her head into the unyielding wood paneling. Her hair feels scratchy against the back of her neck. Too short still.

"Do you remember when you first began?" His voice rumbles. "Under his command?"

She nods.

"Of course I do." Because of course she does.

James rubs the joints of his metal arm.

"Was he the one that named you?"

Natasha sits up a little straighter.

"Is that important?"

He wets his lips.

"I think so. I think it is."

She remembers. It was after Clint found her in Budapest and held a gun to her head, and after he found her again in Belarus and held her through the sweats and the aches and she swore she would never go back, never for good. Alexander Pierce had welcomed her, and handcuffed her to a bed during the night and told her she was special. She understands now why.

Is it worth remembering, to know herself for sure?

"You think it's important." She stands up. "All right."

James opens his arms. Ready.

"Tell me."

Natasha focuses on her leg, first. The pain she knows belongs there. Uneven breakage, poorly knit bones. She forces her body to feel smaller. Exhausted. The room was bright, well-lit. And barren. An empty garage. No windows, only walls. Concrete pillars painted a fading blue. They swayed between them, and she rocks on her feet, accepting the motion.

"He wanted to see what I could do."

She closes her eyes. The smell hits her first, the vinyl of the mats padding the floor, the sweat wafting off her skin in waves. The blood of her opponent, trickling from the corner of his lip. The ice in the cooler behind her, sweating fat globules of condensation in the overheated room. She did hate being cold, in those first months. Or maybe she just said she did.

"Again."

She says it out loud for James' benefit, but Pierce was the one who told them to go again. She was bruised, she remembers now, walking through the steps, slow for the sake of accuracy. She staggered left, not a feint, her leg was sore. It had been broken several months previous, the bone hadn't healed properly, and it hadn't been re-broken yet. She remembers the deep, aching parts of her, satruating her skin. Her forearms were a black and blue mess of defensive marks. Her biceps and shoulders were not much better. Her legs were decorated with scattered impact injuries.

They would heal.

"He had me fighting the head of his security staff." Tall man, thin face, consumed by a thick neck. Broad shoulders. "The guy they hired _after_ Kennedy's assassination." She opens one eye, looking at James, and he doesn't cower away from her. "Not taking any chances, after that one."

James nods, following her movements. He walks with her, not stepping in to take the place of her phantom opponent. No, he's watching her, eyes affixed to her every movement. His steps mirror hers in a way an enemy combatant's never would. He's not challenging, he's following. Someone with an untrained eye might say that they are dancing.

"What did he say, Natasha?"

"Wait."

She sways backwards, feeling the chokehold. She flips, was flipped, as she struggled to get away. Not quite an untenable position. She almost had it, too. If she'd been armed- but she wasn't. It was Pierce's stipulation. No weapons. Guns, knives, garrotes, nothing she wasn't born with. No biting even. "You weren't born with teeth in your mouth, comrade."

James looks at her when he hears that, but she shakes her head, dismisses it. It's not relevant.

"He threw me down."

Her arm behind her, her cheek on the floor. Her knee slammed hard enough that she could feel the concrete through the padding.

"Do you surrender?" Her voice drops an octave as she recalls his exact tone.

"No!"

He'd licked his lips. Not relevant.

"Very well then. Please continue."

She'd dislocated her shoulder, getting out of that hold. Kicked her opponent in the chin of the way up, spinning. He hadn't given her time to do more than that. He was pissed off, and larger, but he wasn't at a disadvantage with speed. He'd punched her in the kidney, and thrown her, slamming her leg into one of the support beams.

She remembers the sound of the bone as it cracked, in three new places in addition to the old break shattering down the badly-healed fault line.

"Do you surrender now?"

Pierce was watching, his tone just as placid and patient as it had always been. She remembers, vividly, the pain in her leg, and she remembers ignoring it. She leaned against the support beam, concrete crumbling underneath her clawing hands as she forced herself to stand. She took one step, then two, then another, hobbling but standing at attention. Fists clenched, blood leaking through her new American jeans. Bile tickled the back of her throat and she subdued it.

"No!" Her voice is harsh as it was then. "No surrender."

Her opponent had wiped the blood from his lip, cradling his jaw.

"Call it boss. She's done."

"You're not done yet." Pierce had been firm.

"She's injured."

Pierce had shrugged.

"We were going to break that leg soon anyway."

The combatant had put his hands up.

"She needs a medic."

Pierce had been kind-

"She didn't surrender."

The combatant had turned away from her, heading for the door. Mistake.

"Well I do then. You've seen what she can do, you know what she can withstand. If you still think she needs the shit kicked out of her you can call someone else."

Pierce hadn't been happy with that response. She knows all his tells now, has them catalogued in her memory. She had just been learning about him then. Pierce is dead, but she will always remember the tells. He'd break eye contact first, shaking his head like it didn't matter, like it was not relevant. He'd suck his bottom lip. Then his tone would change, get lighter, his sentences lilting like what he was saying was a question, or a joke. He'd rub his thumb and forefinger together. He liked to review what had been done wrong, where the misstep had been.

"I didn't think you'd let yourself be beaten by a weak little girl."

And then he would correct it.

He had been kind that way.

Natasha had pounced, her hands around the enemy's head, not giving him a chance to get his bearings. His neck snapped beneath her palms.

She landed, shuddering, on both feet. Pierce's hand fell on her shoulder, and she did not wince or cringe, nor did she wobble on her broken leg, shattered in four different places.

"Excellent work Agent. You're very resourceful. That's useful in the field. Clean up the mess, and then we'll see to that leg of yours, all right?"

She'd nodded, and gone to get the bleach. The body was gone when she returned. It made the job easier. Just a little blood on the floor, most of it hers. Her breath was raspy and cold by the time she finished, but she didn't complain, didn't rush through the job or allow the pain to hobble her. She was used to functioning without adrenaline to soothe her. It didn't spike when she fought anymore.

Pierce cut away her pants himself, inspecting the damage with delicate hands more suited to a surgeon.

"Well, that's gotta sting." He'd smiled up at her, open palms caressing her skin. "Nothing a little R&R won't fix, right kiddo?"

She'd nodded, though the colloquialism escaped her. She still isn't sure what it meant. "Rest and recuperation" is the military definition, but Pierce wasn't a soldier, not officially. Other possible definitions include "read and review", "repeatability and reproducibility" and "rescue and resuscitation".

"Kiddo."

James' voice interrupts her query. He sounds shallow and tired. They've been switching shifts, sleeping for a few hours each cycle, but she has no idea what his previous sleep ration has been up until now. His body might not be used to the amount of exertion it's been put through. She needs to monitor the issue. He must be kept fit and alert. Sleep deprivation will compromise him.

"What else," James' voice is coarse. "What else did he call you?"

She closes her eyes. On the floor, in the position she was in while they waited for the medic, it's easier to remember events how they happened. James isn't sitting across from her though. He's standing. Pacing. Pierce didn't pace. Not unless he wanted someone to think he was on edge. But if anyone had checked his pulse, it would have been stable.

He'd lifted her chin up, lips curling into a smile that sent broad waves across his cheeks.

"Do you know something, you look beautiful when you cry."

She hadn't been aware that she was crying.

Going through the motions in the safe house now, her eyes are dry.

"What _else_ ," James growls.

She recites the words.

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Romanoff. You like the new name? It's almost your old one. I'm going to monitor your progress until you're ready to go out into the field. But I don't want you to think of this as all business. We can be pals. You like movies? I'll take you to some." He shook her hand, not the firm handshake of a soldier, or the gruff praise of a handler after a trial, but the smooth one of an innkeeper or a public relations manager.

"It'll be like you've been reborn. New name, new career path, new flag. And hey, a new family too. A real one this time. One you don't have to be afraid of." And then he squeezed her shoulder, trying to make her feel safe. "You don't have to worry, Natasha. You're fighting for the good guys now."

When she opens her eyes, it is because she hears the sound of James, bending the counter with his metal hand. It groans under the pressure.

"Well?"

His breath is pounding in and out of his chest, but James answers her.

"What was your old one?" His words stutter. "Your name?"

"Natalia."

He rocks forwards.

"Natalia?"

"Natalia Romanov."

James leans backwards, fingers scrambling to support him as he finds the counter. He presses his back against it, the jagged, broken edges must be digging into his skin something fierce.

She had been asked if she could self-terminate. That first jagged day. Surrounded by S.H.E.I.L.D.'s protections. They felt like walls. She didn't want to move. Sitting, shivering even though the room was so hot, the chemicals caused by the pain were forcing her body into shock and she did not want to vomit but she was worried that she might. And Pierce had looked up and asked her. And she said no, because it was the truth. No, she could not. She would remain alive until it was useful to destroy her. Anything less would be a waste. And a disservice to her creators.

She hears James instead, the change in pressure on the floor as he moves. His footsteps are silent, but the impression he makes on the structure holding them up is perceptible to her. She stands on reflex, forcing the phantom pain to fade away, and there's a knife in her hand that she flips in her fingers without any will behind the gesture. Natasha pauses, the edge of the blade hovering just above his neck. She doesn't remember coming so close. He looks at her, eyes wide, but he doesn't try to stop her once he realizes she won't do it.

Too much information lost already.

Natasha lowers her arm. She drops the knife, and it clatters when it crashes against the floor. She has others. James reaches for her and she reaches back. She lifts up her legs and clamps onto his hips. He grasps her around the waist, leaning backwards, and they crash into the wall. He absorbs most of the shock in his metal arm before curling forward, resting her back against the wood and plaster. It cracks behind her- she doesn't care. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, fingers digging into flesh. Grinds her hips against him. He kisses her, open mouthed and messy. He tastes like metal between her teeth. Natasha bends her leg, pressing her foot against the wall. She pushes, lunging forwards.

His steps are heavy and he crashes into the couch, falling backwards. Natasha takes the opportunity to tear off her shirt. Then she leaps, landing on his before he can regain his balance. So difficult, with that heavy metal arm. He goes over the side of the battered couch, and she rocks against him. Hips circling hips. Joints cracking. She calls, wordless. His body answers. Heat escapes on her breath, and she presses forwards.

He reaches for her cheek, and she bends to let him kiss her again. The flavor of metal is gone, and only human skin remains. Sticky saliva, hot breath, salty sweet and bitter skin. She gnaws at him, but doesn't make him bleed. He growls, and she feels it vibrating between their chests. He thrusts up against her.

"We need-" he rasps.

"Can't get pregnant."

He licks his lips, then presses toothy, open-mouthed kisses to her neck, breathing hard against her ear.

"But what about-"

His voice is so jarring. "Can't get sick either." She licks around his helix, and then blows on the damp skin. "It's all right."

He leans away from her, back pressing deep into the cushions of the couch.

"I don't want to... I don't need to ejaculate." His voice is a thin whisper. "I just want to feel close to you."

She looks at him sideways.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

He chuckles then, deep, his whole belly shaking. Natasha bobs up and down on top of him, breasts swaying. He rolls up his shirt, revealing skin marred by lines and scratches too deep for even his enhanced body to heal. Bullet wounds and electrical scars and whip marks and stab wounds and cauterizations and memories buried beside his bones.

"Nothing hurts anymore. It's fine."

She rubs her palm against his belly.

"Me too."

His jaw draws tight.

"You-"

"I taught myself not to feel pain. That way no one can hurt me. And my friends don't need to worry." His eyes look glassy; a strange effect of the afternoon light, she thinks.

"And you still want to...?"

She shrugs.

"Why not?"

He almost throws her off, but she stabilizes him.

"Hey. Don't." She sighs. "Fine. You want a real answer?" So difficult, this one. Nothing like Pierce, nothing like the memory she's still half-chasing. He was yes, and then he was no, nothing like this in-between. She remembers feeling Pierce wanting her, and then his repulsion a few months later, all of it thick on her skin. Not here or now. "Maybe I just want to feel close to you too. That's the best it gets for me, anyway."

He takes a gulp of air.

"We don't have to, then."

He looks. Vulnerable.

"All right."

She doesn't get off him, and he doesn't move to make her.

"What was your first mission? After the trial he put you through?"

She remembers it like the flavor of dry, smoky ashes on her tongue.

"A target eliminated. The children's ward." She refuses to close her eyes. "It's all online."

He reaches up, stroking her bare arm.

"I remember that place." He swallows. "I was stored there, for a little while."

And she made sure it was all destroyed. Turned to dust.

"How old were you?" His voice rumbles.

She shrugs.

"Clint recruited me in '99. I was born in '86."

He grunts.

"You were fifteen."

She cocks her head to the side, like she's seen Tony do when he's pretending to think.

"Math sounds right. Any other personal questions?"

His brows are tightly furrowed.

"Not at present." He sighs again, and she floats on top of his lungs. "There might have been something there. For you or... for both of us."

She hums.

"We're close by. It can't hurt to take a look."

He nods.

"Follow the trail he left for you." He reaches further, touching her cheek. "Natalia."

She rubs her stomach, covering the bullet scar he put there. No point. He probably doesn't remember doing it.

"Close, you said."

His lips part.

"Close." He whimpers. "No one has touched me... in a way that feels good. Not for so long." His breath is coming in hard and rough. "No one has wanted to."

She leans down, and rests against his chest, bare skin warm and soft and solid underneath her.

"I won't go back," he whispers. "I was in charge there, I know what they did to you. When you were..." he shakes his head. She wants him to talk again, to feel the vibrations of his voice through his chest. Natasha touches his cheek, rubbing his skin when he closes his eyes, tight, brows drawn together, breath not coming fast enough, heart drumming against her through his skin.

"James."

"I don't want it." He chokes. "It's my fault. All of it is my fault." He grits his teeth, she feels the tension underneath her fingers as she strokes his stubble. "I just want a choice."

She nods, humming.

"It's all right." She presses her voice into a soft whisper, using the upper register of her voice. Soothing and sweet. Like Marilyn Monroe. "Choose this, James. It's all right. I won't use it against you."

He nods, disrupting her ministrations. When he settles, she moves her hand to his neck, not pressing or hurting, just soft touches. James opens his eyes.

"Thank you."

She wonders what he means.


	25. Heart Failure

They wake up at the same time. Natasha doesn't need to look at James for a confirmation: They both hear it.

"I'll deal with it."

She nods, dressing while he goes outside. She listens to the struggle without concern. Bullets ricochet off the metal arm, flesh fist connects with cheekbone, causing a painful fracture. There will be blood. A knife to the gut. Without medical intervention, the attacker will bleed out. Slow death. Natasha would be able to recover. Then again, Natasha would never allow herself to be caught in such an untenable position. She joins James outside. He's standing over the writhing body. His hands are clean.

"Would you like me to kill him?"

She glares down at the man. Well-equipped. He must have been sent in alone in attempt at stealth. Under-trained, not prepared for her to be with the man with a reputation for being the most deadly assassin on the planet.

"North Institute?"

The man gives her a vigorous nod. Definitely under-trained, if he gives away information so easily.

"Kill him." She turns to go back inside. "He's useless."

* * *

It is early morning in Pakistan.

She is not going to make the call, though she can see Clint through the binoculars. He is dressed lightly, prepared for the warm day ahead, but the sun is barely over the horizon, and right now he's shivering. Too much bare skin. He's going to have a sunburn for months. She wonders if it will change the texture of his skin. It never did for her.

James is beside her, waiting. It's not a necessary stop, but he's curious, and trying to hide it.

"Captain Rogers was here," she murmurs. "Steve," she clarifies when James doesn't respond. He's still trying to look disinterested.

"How can you tell?"

"He brought Sam with him. They left a phone." She smirks. "I taught Rogers to do that."

James settles in beside her.

"Are you training him?"

She shrugs.

"He'll never be like me. He has different strengths. I'm just supplementing them."

James nods.

"You said he was the one that brought you in?"

He's looking at Clint through a detached sniper scope. His expression is unchanged. Calm. Compensating for his extreme vulnerability, she muses. It's what she would do. What she's done. In her rare moments of real vulnerability, not the performance she's given over and over. She remembers it like a sour taste in her mouth, her stomach threatening to overflow again. Tremors in every muscle, shivering in her own skin.

"Why."

She shakes her head. She still doesn't know.

"He made a different call. That's all I know."

A disturbing lack of information. But James nods. It makes no sense to either of them, but he's been on the receiving end of a different call recently. He knows what one looks like.

"He let me go." Her lips wrinkle around the memory, a dislocated jaw and a mouth full of blood. "Gave me something to think about."

James grunts.

"What was your punishment for letting him live?"

"A broken leg." She shrugs. "I didn't forget him. When they rewrote it. That was strange." Natasha swallows, willing away the recollection. "Do you think any of this is relevant?"

His eyes flicker, watching Clint.

"To the Bolshoi? I doubt it." James shifts, putting his weight on his back leg. The arm must be giving him trouble. He glances at her, tearing himself away from the scope to do so. "But I want to know."

She scans him.

"Why?"

He swallows.

"You want to know about me." His lips tremble. "You said you wanted to feel close."

She concedes. She does want that. It is affecting her objectivity. This man is a weapon. A weapon who does not want her to hurt. This man is a friend. If he can be both, then so can she.

"In Belarus. I found him again. I missed a check-in, which meant my extraction was delayed for weeks. And I was..." shivering, her stomach was roiling, she could feel the tight choking feeing in her throat, her muscles struggling to decide what to do. Would she binge everything inside her body, or keep it down? She was worn thin and her mind was reeling and she was dizzy and aching and "...sick."

James licks his lips.

"How?"

She rubs her stomach.

"There were pills we had to take. The handlers called them supplements. I think they were, well." She shakes her head. "They weren't vitamins. I know that much." Clint is talking to someone, giving orders. This isn't his specialty. Dense, complex situations. He's not a spy, he's not accustomed to playing both sides. He shouldn't be here. He doesn't belong here. He's not like her.

"I didn't know what to do. I was supposed to wait somewhere safe, but I couldn't. I felt like I was dying. I needed, water, I think it was." She works her tongue through her mouth, remembering how parched she was, how bitter the flavor of her own saliva was. She wanted to rinse herself out, make herself feel clean. So she had gone looking for water. But where could she go? Belarus was hostile. There were enemies everywhere. Someone would recognize her.

"I didn't remember tracking Clint across the world until I ended up in his bedroom."

James tenses, and she shakes her head.

"I curled up in his bed and waited for him. When he found me-" she pauses. "I thought he might kill me. He hadn't the first time, but that didn't mean anything. And I couldn't fight him off. I was too weak." Maybe if she tells James, he won't feel awkward about what he showed her before. Worry and fear and shaking hands. Close. "He didn't kill me."

"Well hello again," her memory supplies, Clint's worn voice familiar and strange at the same time. He crouched down beside her, tucked her hair behind her ear. She'd been panting, feeling like a rabid animal. He was worried, but at the time she hadn't been able to decipher his expression. Days of trying to figure it out while he pressed cool water to her lips, wiping sweat off her brow, changing the sheets, watching over her while she shook and whimpered and bit down on her tongue to keep herself from screaming as her stomach tried to claw its way out of her abdomen. All the ugliness of illness, and he didn't do what he should have done. He should have killed her, like one might kill a sick dog. Or an enemy combatant. Clint did not do what he was supposed to do, and she didn't understand it.

 _What_ do _you want_?

"I decided I didn't want it anymore." She echoes the words James used, and he notices. Ahead of them, Clint is stretching, and she knows his shoulders are popping. He needs to take better care of those joints. He's an archer. James returns to the scope. She knows what he's seeing. Clint doesn't look like much. He's not a super soldier, or even a regular soldier. He's just a man, a little strong and a little smart. He has good aim and terrible judgement. She keeps an arrow around her neck, and she thinks James must see that too. It would explain why he's looking at Clint like he's still missing something.

"He knew you when you were Natalia?"

She nods. It took him months to remember her new name. He'd taken to just calling her 'Nat' and hoping for the best. James parts his lips.

"We should leave."

They've been there for too long. Security is abominable- if she was in charge they would have been spotted by now. But they shouldn't risk anymore than they already have.

"I'll drive the rest of the way. We're close."

* * *

Natasha knows that she was born here in 1984. She has a memory, and she knows it's not one of her own, because she can see herself from the outside, struggling and screeching as she was torn from another body, wet and pink and eyes screwed shut, loose little limbs and clenched fists and confused terror coursing through her veins as her lungs learned to breathe air. There is no way for her to have seen that, but she knows it happened and the idea is written into her, available when she searches for it. Born in 1984, property of the Soviet Union.

The sky is a bright, striking blue. The ground before them is sandy gold. The bricks and stones are singed and worn down by wind and time. All that remains are the rough square shapes that indicate structures that burned to the ground.

"Do you remember anything?" James is right beside her, looking at the bare bones of the place that remain long after the carnage. Natasha breathes through her lips, tasting the air. Dry. Dry, and too warm. She feels tense, muscles tightening up around her caves and shoulders. She allows it. It will help her sort through the memories she was given, and the ones she retained, deep underneath her skin.

"I remember a son here." His voice creaks. "My son."

She came in the night. Cigarette smoke wafted through the air; she was downwind. Lots of cover, lots of places to hide in the dark. Her target was bathed in light. It made it impossible for those inside to see her as she moved towards them. Lithe and small and moving swiftly, she was dangerous that night. No extraction plan, no backup. She had proven to Pierce that she didn't need it. Her first mission. She was doing something horrible, but she was doing it for the right reason, that was what he had told her, and that was what she thought of as she snuck up to the guard sharing his cigarette, and slit his throat.

James is running his fingers through his hair.

"I wasn't supposed to know. I was." He coughs. "I was a trainer. They only used me on the most dangerous missions, the ones no one else could do."

Natasha knows this like she knows there's a scar on her abdomen where he took a shot right through her. How many times had they crossed paths and not noticed one another? And why are they together now, after so many decades dancing around each other, crossing boundaries and borders without knowing who was on the other side of the gun?

She shakes her head. No need to be maudlin.

"I came in, said I was inspecting the new soldiers. It was the only way." James licks his lips. "I got to hold him. No one was looking, for five minutes. I took." He squeezes his eyes shut, and his arms rise up, cradling empty air. He rocks from side to side, and his voice shrinks, small and gentle. "I pressed my fingers against each one of his. They were so small. I kept counting them. I kept thinking it was impossible that there would be ten. That. Because he was mine, something would be wrong with him. Like something of me would be passed down to him somehow." He shakes his head. "But he was perfect."

When James opens his eyes and sees Natasha looking at him, his lips curl into a smile. "Ten pounds, eight ounces. He was heavy. Overdue, I think. And he smelled," he swallows, obviously trying to recapture the memory of the scent. "He smelled so fresh."

Natasha remembers running through the site, setting her traps. Six tiny bombs, set to go off at calculated intervals. She killed anyone that saw her, didn't bother hiding the bodes. Everyone inside was going to die. She ignored the rows of beds, ignored the cells, ignored the переписывать seat because that was not what she was there for. Department X needed to be deconstructed, because at the time they were enemies, some strange vestige of the Cold War that Pierce wanted eliminated. She was turned against them because she knew the floor plan intimately. She had memorized the weak spots in the structure long before she knew how to read. Before she was transferred. To Moscow. To North Korea. Thorough training required constant movement. She was a well-kept secret, she and the others. Pierce sent her back to destroy her creators, her imitators, her past. The memory of destruction is fused to her bones, but it's no longer clear what it is she destroyed.

She was born to be something. The wife of Alexei Shostakov, maybe. She could have been conceived before his death. Plans change. There is something missing here, beside the walls and ceilings.

Natasha is sure, in a way she can't describe, that Alexei died here. And Department X made something of her instead.

"I don't think I saw him again." James looks unsure, struggling for something unclear. "I knew though." He sighs. "My blood. They wiped me. Over and over and over. But Alexei is my blood."

 _Alexei is dead_ , she doesn't tell him. He might remember it on his own. He might not. He might not know.

"Any connection to the Bolshoi was destroyed the last time I came here." She watches James. "Anything else coming back to you? Anything we can use?"

He struggles, then shakes his head.

"No. I'm sorry, no."

She is about to reach for him, comfort him, but she sees a glimmer of metal on the horizon, and it's not an illusion. She's trained her eyes to ignore every mirage they create. No time for fabrications in the field. James reads her body and turns to see the plane landing a few miles away. The cloaking technology is unrefined. She can feel the engines humming as the landing gear grazes the surface. James has a gun in each hand, and he's glaring as a figure disembarks.

"They should have learned to leave you alone when their scout didn't return."

Natasha shakes her head, going to the car. She needs the rifle.

"That's not from the North Institute." She loads extra ammunition over her shoulder. She scowls. Of course. The destruction of the base caught their attention. And now she's here, at an old Department X site, one that _she_ destroyed over a decade ago. Predictable. Easy trail to follow. They covered their tracks, but their pattern was too easy to discern. Stupid mistake. "That will be Nefertiti."

James grimaces.

"You shouldn't have told me."

She looks up at him. His posture is stiff, and his guns are resting at his sides, instead of aimed and ready to fire. Natasha unclenches her jaw with effort.

"You can't countermand your orders."

James shakes his head, but it wasn't a question. She knows for certain now that he's connected to Department X, that he's been ordered to stand down during the trial they've orchestrated between her and Nefertiti. He won't intervene. Irritating.

"Not that I need you to." She shrugs. "I can deal with this."

James is looking at her with a hollow, dark-eyed expression.

"I know that." He swallows. "They want to know that you are ruthless. That's all they need."

She cocks her eyebrow.

"And your reports weren't enough to prove that?"

His teeth are chattering.

"I," he groans, "I _can't_ tell you, why don't you understand? It's not that I don't want- it's that I _can't_."

She shrugs into her coat, wrapping the bullet-deflecting fabric over her vulnerable abdomen.

"Just stay here this time. Can you do that?"

He nods. Probably because he has to. Monitor from a safe distance. Close enough for adequate surveillance, far away enough to avoid sustaining damage. Remove the temptation to intervene. Intervention will ruin the data. She has let this go. Let them watch her, let him report back. Perhaps it was a mistake. She begins walking. The earth shifts beneath her feet. Fine. She'll show them how ruthless she really is.

Nefertiti isn't hiding. Natasha flips the rifle over her shoulder and takes a wild shot. She knows it won't hit. Her aim is impeccable, even without a scope, but Nefertiti is already anticipating the bullet. She moves fast enough to avoid it. Too much distance between them. Natasha walks sideways, swaying serpentine. The cover of the damaged buildings is sparse. Bullets rain from overhead- the ship. She aims her gun above her head, destroying the firing mechanisms without taking her eyes off her real target. Nefertiti is coming closer, and their movements are the same. Swaying like a breeze, small swift steps. Move fast, side to side, make yourself a difficult target.

There are a few rough stacks of rubble surrounding them when they meet. Natasha takes a few more shots with the rifle. The wide barrel is unwieldy to maneuver, but the damage it causes more than compensates for the annoyance. Natasha fires, and Nefertiti has to duck and run in order to avoid the shots. It cripples her opening assault.

Nefertiti vaults herself off a sturdy support beam, the only remnant of the southern wall, and Natasha catches her blow with the barrel of the rifle. She shoves forward, catching Nefertiti's cheek with the butt of the gun. Fractured bone. Satisfying crack. Nefertiti is thrown backwards, but she drags Natasha with her. They fall. Nefertiti lands on her back. Natasha is on top of her for a brief moment, but Nefertiti uses the gun between them to gain leverage and flip Natasha over. She grunts as her head is slammed into the rock beneath her, her hair growing sticky with blood. They grapple on the ground. Natasha gets her finger on the trigger and fires. She hits the unsteady debris above them, and it tumbles. Natasha wraps her legs around Nefertiti's calves to make sure she endures the worst of it, her body working like a shield. The dust and dirt settle around them, and Nefertiti has a fierce expression on her face.

"Hello again, sister," Natasha spits, refusing to choke on the grime she inhaled.

Nefertiti frowns at her, her grip on the rifle still firm.

"Where were you stationed?"

Natasha remembers those words, and is certain that Nefertiti has been rewritten. Unfortunate.

"Kiev. You were in Algeria." She thrusts her hips up, jamming her foot into Nefertiti's ankle, twisting out of the other woman's grasp as she dislocates the joint underneath her heel. "Who is the mission head now?" Natasha shouts as she scrambles into a crouch, slapping Nefertiti's grab away with the barrel of the gun. She shoots again but Nefertiti slips out of the line of fire, unsheathing a knife as she grabs Natasha's arm, slashing unpredictably. Natasha takes a step backwards, then another, dodging. She shoots at Nefertiti's feet, throwing dirt up into the air, obscuring her vision. Doesn't matter. Natasha takes a shot, knowing she has a fifty-fifty chance of finding her target.

She doesn't. Nefertiti sinks the knife into her shoulder. "I don't know, I am not told," she whispers and Natasha reacts, ignoring the pain as she wields the gun one-handed, punching Nefertiti in the face. Additional damage to the fractured cheekbone. Natasha is dizzy, but the dislocated ankle is slowing down Nefertiti, no longer able to engage in a chase or tackle. More difficult to gain an overhead advantage as well. Natasha uses that. Nefertiti is carefully keeping herself out of firing range, so Natasha angles the hot barrel of the gun towards Nefertiti's weak leg, forcing her to take defensive steps away from her. It gives Natasha the opening to move. She knows where Nefertiti will move next.

 _My body remembers_ and Natasha knows that, too. Knows as she fires, aiming as if in a dream. The shot goes straight through Nefertiti's left wrist, and her arm explodes in a flash of blood. Her hand hand limp and seeping from the ruined joint. Nefertiti stumbles, but doesn't react, to the pain or the injury or the success of her opponent. Natasha knows that she will keep fighting, until one or both of them has died or there are orders to stop. It feels vile. They stare at one another, gasping, waiting to see if the trial will end.

"There are many factions." Nefertiti grins. "Mine and yours grew from the same stump."

Of course. A clandestine organization like Hydra, there will be hundreds of independent factions. No one person will know everything. Most efficient means to ensure information remains safe. Make it exclusive. Elusive. Every time you cut off one head, another steps up and expands and changes. Absorbs other, similar ventures. The Cold War is over. Her owners have been absorbed by the organization she defected to. She was merely the first wave.

"Your son." Natasha swallows. "He's gone."

Nefertiti's expression changes.

"You did it?"

Natasha feels lightheaded. It's just the injury. Nefertiti shifts and turns.

"I'm being recalled."

"Nefertiti-"

The other woman glares.

"Was he one of theirs?!"

Natasha knows what she means. Was he no longer _hers_.

"I could have saved him."

Nefertiti's expression doesn't change, but Natasha can sense her anger rising.

"Did you?"

Natasha sighs.

"No."

Snarling, Nefertiti departs, hobbling. Natasha watches her, eyes slipping to the trail of blood seeping into the earth. There's still a knife buried in her shoulder, and this trial was a draw. But she was ruthless. She feels pride bubbling up inside her chest before she bites down on the inside of her cheek. She's done nothing here to be proud of. The point is survival. The point is- no.

The point is...

The point is, she's not one of them anymore. So why are they sending another Red Room widow after her? Sent in with orders to kill, but withdrawn before either combatant was close to death. James is sure it's a trial, and if he really was the mission head at the site they just destroyed (she needs to check the files they extracted), he would be privy to such information. Especially if he's been assigned to her.

Her throat clenches. Not a handler. Can't be. She doesn't follow his orders. He doesn't give them. But the shield- no. She swallows. In North Korea, he'd instructed her to take the lead. Because she knew the building- no. Here, he'd told her to come here, given her the coordinates and then had himself wiped- no, why? Why would he order her to destroy his own operation? No handler would- except handlers did. All the time. That was Alexei Shostakov's demise, wasn't it? He was an operation set up to fail. Given a test no soldier could pass. Natasha swallows. The Bolshoi. It's not phrased like an order. But he has insisted. She has determined that there is a degree of programming still active in his system. And she has not finished recruiting him. There is a system, and she has followed it, but the process has been slow. Too many delays and distractions. Side projects.

James is there, lurking in the shadow of a dilapidated wall.

"You all right?"

She glances at the knife. She can't shrug.

"I'm multi-tasking."

"I can take care of that."

She shakes her head.

"Give them enough time to get away."

His brow furrows.

"When the adrenaline gets filtered through your-"

"I'm not riding an adrenaline high. Doesn't happen to me." She smirks. "No pain, remember? Took some getting used to."

James swallows.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she murmurs. "You didn't stay where I put you."

He grunts.

"I guess I'm not the 'staying-put' type."

She chuckles, because it is polite.

"Sergeant Barnes, was that a joke?"

He considers it.

"If you want it to be."

That makes her laugh, a real one. Something about his posture, his tone, it's incongruous. Incongruity is often a source of comedy.

He waits for her.

She will have to unravel him. She needs to do so, and fast. She needs to check in with Bruce, and find out how much progress he's been able to make. She needs to review the data at her disposal, and come up with a list of potential sites for the new technology launch. She needs to deal with the North Institute. She needs to plant a few more false leads for Rogers to follow, because he's too close, and it's clear that his intervention will only make things more difficult. James is her only contact within Hydra, she needs to be able to use him, and if Rogers finds him-

What if James finds Rogers first?

"Go back to the car and start the engine. I'll catch up."

James nods, and departs. Natasha waits until he's gone, listening to his heavy tread. She yanks the knife out of her shoulder. Two of her fingers feel numb. Minor nerve damage. Will take a few days to heal. Not a problem. She can still use the arm, which is all that matters. She flexes her muscles, ignoring the sharp spike of pain. She wonders, for a moment, if she should have apologized to Nefertiti. It was on the tip of her tongue. And what had she whispered instead? _No_. Simpler. Honest. She hadn't saved the boy. It did not matter that she tried.


	26. Acathexis

They sit beside one another. The camp they're looking down at isn't bustling, but it's not quiet, either. Even early in the day. James has the binoculars, and his eyes flicker behind them. Natasha is holding the scope, but it's resting in her lap. She doesn't need to see Rogers up close.

"You all right?" It seems appropriate to ask.

James scowls.

"Depends on your definition."

He hasn't been sleeping well, this she knows. She can hear him, muttering and shifting. He's not used to natural sleep, she thinks. He's thin, his cheeks sharp around the edges, and too pale. His body isn't working the way it should. In that sense, he's not 'all right'. His clothes are dark and too baggy, but he's well-armed. That's always useful. He's got guns and bullets and knives and an arm made of metal and grenades and a garrote, and that last one is new. Fresh. Still unused. He's ready for a fight, beyond the wildest imaginations of his handlers, his creators, and most of all, the other man at the end of the binoculars. She hasn't decided yet how stable James is. It's so difficult to decipher human emotion. How much of him was built, and how much is left of the man born in 1918? His muscles remember seventy years of training. His trigger discipline is excellent. His combat responses are precise. These are things she can quantify and study, but she has no idea how to examine his insides.

So, she watches him watching Rogers, and tries to find something else she can quantify.

"You should probably take better care of yourself."

He grunts.

"Pot, meet kettle."

She grits her teeth. She can't allow herself to forget that they are the same. Just as she is tearing him apart, piece by piece, he is trying to understand _her_. He has been compiling evidence. It occurs to her that it might be evidence _against_ her, just as much as it might be _of_ her. It's the latter that startles her more. She can count on one hand the number of people who have cared to know that she _is_. 

"How's the target?"

James doesn't take his eyes away from him.

"Spent three hours doing calisthenics early in the morning. Spent thirty minutes coordinating with local authorities to go trekking through the wilderness in the wrong direction based on that false intel you gave him. Thanks, by the way." James shrugs. "Do people like you accept thank-yous?"

She nods, trusting that he will hear her.

"I do." She feels her lips twitching upwards. "There aren't many people like me anymore."

He hums.

"People like you have something to do with that shortage?"

A little puff of air escapes her lips.

"You could say that."

He sighs. It's something she's noticed him doing. There doesn't seem to be a reliable way to predict his responses. Which suggests there is still some battle for control going on, at least inside him. He seems angry. Anger is difficult to assess. There are too many variables: what triggers the anger, and why are the responses so different, even when they are reactions to similar stimuli?

"He's worried."

His expression doesn't change when he speaks; Natasha is watching closely. Time to push.

"About you?"

There. James bites the inside of his cheek. "Lack of sleep, muscle tension, anxiousness and mood swings, all indicative of acute stress."

She leans closer.

"That sounds like you."

He huffs.

"I'm fully operational, thank you very much."

She understands. He's not incorrect. There's a mission. He can follow it through. All other information is irrelevant. To him, anyway. This is it. This is the string she needs to tug at.

"You could help." She doesn't register a response. "If he knew you were here-"

"He's better off not knowing."

She thinks that will be the end of it. Anger, once again, so wild. But she's mistaken. He's too difficult to predict. It makes him more dangerous. Even if she is the superior fighter.

"He's looking for someone dead." There's that sigh again, chest-deep and weary. "That's how it should be. I need to die somewhere. He'll grieve. And then he'll live his life."

She can see the appeal. Rogers can't be disappointed by a memory. Natasha knows first-hand that memories can be altered to suit the present reality. Nostalgia can be applied liberally to coat misery in meaning, to convert misfortune into happiness. Misunderstanding, too, can be ripped away in exchange for clarity. With access to new information, a misinterpretation can lead to new enlightenment. But a memory of a memory, separated by years and alternative versions of reality... Rogers can remember the Soldier as Bucky Barnes, as a hero, as a victim, as someone brave and loyal that should have been saved. And if they never meet, she is sure that Rogers can go on believing those things, and most of all, those things can be true.

"Is that what you want?"

He leans back then. He doesn't tear his gaze away from the lenses, but he brings her into the range of his peripheral vision.

"Isn't that what I've been asking for?"

She places a hand on his shoulder.

"Just a little longer."

He inhales, his chest shaking.

"Aren't you supposed to tell me I've got a lot to live for, or something?"

She shrugs.

"What's your mission?"

His lips draw into a thin line.

"I can't tell you that."

She huffs.

"Fine." After some consideration, she answers his question. "War is hell. It doesn't matter whether or not you keep walking, it's never going to be over for people like us."

He smirks, and it's a mirror image of her own twisted smile, the real one. The rare one.

"Got that right?"

Natasha is used to silence, and she doesn't feel stiff, sitting with him. She watches the minutes pass in the sunlight, traking their passage in the length of the shadows. Rogers is a dull, quiet mark. For the moment, anyway. When he's got something big and bad ahead of him, Rogers is a nightmare to keep track of. But right now, it's not difficult. Watching him feels... familiar. She learned this when she was a child. She knows it, though she doesn't remember. Once she became accustomed to the obscure rhythm of the stillness, it was easy for her to watch undistracted, even the boring targets. James is the same way. He doesn't twitch, his muscles don't groan, his joints don't complain. His body understands waiting.

"What about you?" His voice is thin from disuse.

"Me?"

His eyes flicker behind the binoculars.

"What's your mission?"

"Huh." No commander, telling her what to do, it takes her a moment. "The files I exposed in DC were incomplete. I have to find out who I was."

He grunts. For sixteen minutes, there is silence.

"I was a soldier. I was born in Brooklyn. My body is almost a hundred years old."

She knows this. She waits.

"It takes about seven years for your cells to regenerate." He takes a deep breath, his chest expanding. "So, whoever you were, she's gone. She's not coming back." Natasha feels cold. "So, what do you want to be instead?" Her face feels cold. "Since you can choose. You might as well pick something good."

She presses her palm to her cheek. It's wet; she's crying. But that doesn't make any sense. James is not looking at her. There's no tactical advantage to tears right now. He can't see her, no one can see her. With no one looking. There's no point in tears right now.

"Why did you say that?"

His eyebrows shoot upwards.

"Because," he rasps, "the parts of me that don't think of you as my enemy want you to be happy."

She licks her lips.

"How many of you are there?"

"Who?"

"Parts."

"Ah." He breathes out through his nose, breathes in. "I'm not sure. Haven't done a head count."

"But there is some part of you-"

"There always will be." His tone is dark. "That's why I'm up here, and not down there."

Natasha supposes, ultimately, there is no way for her to peel through him. He's not made of paper. He's flesh and blood. They live in a world of action. She can't waste time asking herself questions about his moral code of conduct, any more than she can ask questions about her own. She can't wonder about his state of mind, or his nature, or about the millions of things that nurtured or nullified him over the decades. She can pour through his history, add and subtract elements until she can build a body that has refreshed itself too many times. He is not the same. His cells might carry the memory, but he cannot be the same. He must act on what he knows. And he carries more knowledge, from more scar-infested war stories, than most people are built to carry.

There is one thing that he keeps coming back to, over and over again, the constant worry that he's held close to his chest every time they've met. Despite being wiped, erased. Something he knows in his bones.

Steven Grant Rogers.

He may not remember himself, he may not know anything useful. But he knows the man he's watching.

She doesn't trust. It's a good policy. But this is something she can rely on.

Something she can use.

* * *

Greece is far enough for the time being. There are decent places to hide, due to the financial collapse. Buildings in foreclosure. Abandoned. They choose an unfurnished apartment in a cluttered neighborhood. Someplace two squatters can go unnoticed, even with descriptions as notorious as theirs. Cover the metal arm, conceal her hair, and they pass unnoticed through the crowded streets. She knows James is glowering at strangers like a bodyguard, and she lets him. People will think she's his daughter, or a sexual partner, and both identities work fine. As long as they have running water and plenty of warning if they're under attack, it doesn't matter what the people around them think they are.

Natasha sets up her laptop, connecting to the private Stark network, because it's the best chance she has to keep her work secret. Sure, Tony can look. But she's hoping he'll be too bored to investigate deeply. After all, he missed all of Hydra hiding underneath S.H.I.E.L.D. when he went digging. Tony is brilliant, but rarely thorough enough to cause any real trouble for her.

James looks at her, crouching down on the floor in front of the screen.

"Need anything?"

She shakes her head.

"Just time." She performs a quick internal check. "I think there's some canned food in that cabinet. If you're so inclined." Tooth is still bothering her. She needs to get her hands on a good pair of pliers, too. Once she knocks a few other things off her to-do list.

The flash drive is moderately informative. James makes noise in the broken kitchen while she scans the files they recovered. Pierce modeled the program after the debriefing given by one Natalia Romanov in 1999. She knows this, and she knows what she put on record. Interesting that he chose to document some of her off-record statements, but not surprising. She glances at James, occupied with the gas stove that won't light. He must know how the переписывать works, if he was the mission head. He might know how to disable it.

But she's not willing disclose that part of her plan to him. Compartmentalize. The best way to keep a secret.

Some of the dates look a little funny to her, but the gist of the story makes sense. Groom an asset, converted from the enemy. Find out what it takes to create your own. Integrate new tactics with the programs already in progress. Keep moving forward. Thorough application of torture and mind control. No surprises.

She sends a message to Sam before she closes the laptop. Encoded, even though James has shown no interest in the device. Not part of his skill set, she imagines. The correspondence is not sensitive. Just relaying confirmations back and forth. "Are you safe?", "Yeah, are you?", "Yes". She maintains protocol anyway.

James is standing by the gritty counter. The stove doesn't work; he's built a makeshift burner out of an empty soda can and a little extra fuel. Resourceful. The food he's cooking doesn't look or smell appetizing, but it's irrelevant. Nutrition is nutrition. Natasha telegraphs her movements as she moves closer to him, inspecting the empty containers James disposed of on the floor. Discovers her Greek is basic, but she recognizes the picture of some sort of legume on one, and something that smells like anchovies was stored in another. Vitamins and protein. The meal will be acceptable.

James serves her some in a soup ladle.

"You need to eat."

Natasha shrugs, but she takes the handle. It's easy to swallow the food without tasting it. She finishes the serving in three bites. James watches her do it. She nods at him and returns the spoon.

"Thanks."

He rubs the handle between his metal fingers.

"Did you get anything useful?"

"From the files?" He nods. "Not much," she admits. "I lived most of it. Anything I wasn't there for," she shakes her head. "It's not exactly news that Alexander Pierce was an excellent manipulator. The details aren't surprising."

James extinguishes his makeshift flame. They take turns with the ladle, though James is subtly trying to give Natasha the greater share of the food.

"I should have come in sooner," he whispers. "At the base."

She hands him the empty spoon.

"And done what?"

He shrugs.

"I shouldn't have let them hurt you."

She tries not to roll their eyes.

"I told you, I don't feel-"

"Don't argue with me!"

The handle snaps between his fingers. The pieces of the ladle clatter to the floor. James grits his teeth.

"I think there's a fork somewhere-"

"It's okay." She places a hand on his forearm. There must be excellent pressure sensors in the metal because his flinch is not delayed. Natasha lets go. He grimaces.

"I'm sorry."

Her lip quirks to the side.

"It's just a spoon."

"For." His jaw flexes. "I'm sorry."

She licks her lips. Time to push.

"Did you know, when they sent you to find me, that we were looking for the same thing?"

He shudders when she presses her fingers against the joint in his shoulder where metal and muscle combine. But he doesn't back away.

"We're not."

She hums.

"Our paths cross. Over and over and over again. I would have just missed you when you left Russia." She watches him. He's tense enough to break. "And we have friends in common."

His voice rumbles.

"We don't have _friends-_ "

"Do you think it's a coincidence that they sent you after me? Hounding me towards the Bolshoi? They must have known what it would do to you."

James swallows.

"Why are you doing this?"

Natasha drops her hand.

"Because I can't trust you!" Adds a slight tremor to her voice. "I want to." Calmer. "But they could have sent anyone after me. They should have sent someone I was more likely to trust." Posture structured to appear as if it's a struggle to look at him. "They sent you. There must be a reason."

James bites his lip.

"You know I can't."

She doesn't reach for him, but she appears to try.

"It could be part of their plan. James." She only continues when she knows he's looking at her. "If they're doing trials, they're recruiting me. Again." She takes a deep breath. "They must want to trigger some memory of yours. Why else would they send you to me?"

His voice rumbles. "You don't trust anyone."

She shrugs. No point denying it.

"You're not just anyone. You tried to kill me. More than once." She doesn't avert her eyes as he starts to back away. "So why did they send you to help me?"

He grimaces.

"Maybe I sent myself."

"For what purpose?" She takes a step closer, licking her lips. "You said you didn't want it." His eyelids flicker, nervous. "James. What did you mean?"

"Don't ask me that," he sounds fragile. She stays where she is, just inside his guard. Everything is within reach. She expects he can smell her; sweat and the smoke of the city rest heavy on her skin.

"You said-"

"Don't touch me, please." She wasn't reaching for him, but she freezes anyway, palms up like she's chosen to surrender. She waits for him to fill the silence, to give her what she needs. After thirty-three seconds, he does.

"I can't. You don't understand me. I can't. I want to, but I." His lips furrow as he pushes the word back down his throat.

"The programming?" She knows the answer.

"It's part of me," James wheezes, settling on a truth he's actually able to tell. She remembers the feeling. Streams of data resting in the back of her thoughts. Having a mechanical heart and a fabricated mind. For so long, her body was an empty vessel, waiting to be imprinted on and then rewritten. Over and over again rewritten. Natasha read the Winter Soldier's file. She knows if she presses her fingers against his temple, she'll feel the remnants of burn scars underneath his rapidly healing flesh. She knows where to push him now.

"And Alexei?"

He shakes.

"Don't ask me about him."

"He's part of it, isn't he? A part of me."

His eyes are wide. James cringes.

"I don't know what you mean."

"He's in my history." She makes an abortive step forward, stopping herself when she needs to. She's still inside his sphere of defense. "He's a part of the Bolshoi chapter too, isn't he? He was connected to me for a reason. How did he come about?"

James clutches his forehead, his hair falling across his mismatched fingers as they thread together.

"They made me."

She presses closer. Comforting.

"What?"

His pupils are dark.

"They _made_ me."

James backs away from her, and she lets him. His back presses against the wall and his hands fall. His chest is heaving. His fingers twitch like he still has a pair of slender hips between them. Natasha knows what to look for. She can hear her training like a whisper against the back of her neck.

"What did they make you do?" Just enough horror to sound sympathetic.

He swallows.

"I thought they would kill her if I didn't. And she." His throat constricts. "She fought me." His chest is shaking. She can't move closer to him, not without startling him, it's not the time for comfort.

"James," she whispers. Voice temperate. "It's not your fault. I had orders like that, too." Look down, feel the need to escape. "I had to let people touch me-"

"It's not-"

"I had to touch them-"

"It's not the same!" His voice cracks on a shout that rattles the ceiling. "What they did to you," he howls. "I am _nothing_ like you. They hurt you and I. They used me to hurt." He shakes his head, eyes closed. He steps away from the wall, forcing himself to recover. This brings him closer to her. He is trying to comfort her. She can work from that position. "You can't call what they did to you the same as what I did. Natasha. It's." He's looking at her and his eyes have tears in them and his arms are shaking like he wants to hold her. For a second, she thinks he might, and braces herself. He doesn't.

"They used me to hurt," he finally says.

She makes herself sound vulnerable, unsure.

"I shouldn't have." She swallows. "I shouldn't have asked."

He shrugs.

"You're right about Alexei. He's in the Bolshoi. Anyone who trained in the Red Room, all their files are stored with her." He lets out a puff of air. It breaks against Natasha's forehead. "They might not have known, when they sent me to you. The information isn't anywhere else." His voice turns bitter. "They erased him. To hide him from me."

She reaches for his cheek. It startles him, but all he does is grasp her hand in his. The metal fingers articulatearound her palm.

"Is that why you don't want it anymore?"

He speaks through his teeth.

"I just want to keep him safe."

He's full of fractured hope. It will hurt, once he knows. But the dead cannot disappoint. And there are only so many weapons in her arsenal.

"James. I'm sorry."

He blanches. He lets go of her hand and backs away again.

"No. Why?"

"Everyone we've known in common is dead, there's no way for-"

He cuts her off, but not in the way she expects. She is anticipating pain. A fist in her gut, or clenched around her throat. Something unpleasant, choking the air out of her body and squeezing her lungs and instead. Instead. He is gripping the counter and his chest is heaving against the weight of his reaction. His eyes are squeezed tight. There's a low, groaning sound coming from the back of James' throat, and the counter snaps in his grasp. She watches, barely breathing.

"Say that. You don't mean that." He growls. "Say what you mean."

She doesn't need to feign concern.

"James-"

" _Please_ ," he wheezes through tight lips.

"Alexei died, James." There's no way to temper it, and she can see the pain travel through his system. "Over thirty years ago."

He bolts.

He doesn't make it far. Natasha follows him like a shadow. There's no direction, no end-goal. James makes it to the rooftops and keeps moving forward. The sky is a brooding gray, and Natasha can smell the impending storm on the air as James claws his way up a chimney. She keeps pace from a few stories beneath him. James must know she's there. Neither one of them is being subtle. Civilians might not notice them, but for anyone with a modicum of training they're both easy to spot. He must know, but he's not looking at her. He's moving fast, but he's not trying to lose her. It's erratic. Strange.

He stops at a high point overlooking the city. The rain is beginning to fall, scattered raindrops staining the concrete and stone. Natasha swings up and onto an open fire escape, stepping lightly to avoid the notice of the people inside. Their windows are closed. They must have known about the storm, too.

It's a slow ascent, but he doesn't seem to care once she's reached him. He's breathing heavily, his shoulders drooping forward to compensate for the off-balance weight of the left one. There is rainwater washing down his back, between his shoulders. It doesn’t seem like he’s noticed. Maybe he doesn’t remember how to care. Natasha considers the benefits and downsides to missions drenched in water. Compromised vision, sure, but the weather will do half her cleanup for her.

He grunts when he hears her.

She waits for him, but he doesn't move. He's soaked, and his body is shivering, but he breathes like none of it matters.

"You didn't know," she whispers over the sound of the rain.

"I thought." He doesn't finish the sentence.

“Most people would ask if you’re all right,” she crosses her arms. “Obviously I’m not that stupid. Come back in. Before you catch pneumonia.”

He shakes himself, touching his left sleeve. Underneath it, she thinks she can hear the machinery shifting.

“I don’t think I can catch pneumonia anymore.”

She shifts, adopting a defensive position. Thirteen ways to attack from the left side, vulnerable from above, and he’s taller and heavier, she’d need to unbalance him-

"I thought you knew." And, because it's necessary, she says: "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" He chokes. "You said you were engaged?"

She nods, though he's not looking at her. He continues like he's accepted her response anyway.

"You should be relieved. What he would have had to do to you-"

"It's fine," she whispers, but he cringes.

"I hated it." His shoulders twitch. "I hated her and I hated them and I hated everything they made me do." He swallows. "But I couldn't hate him."

He turns around. His eyes are red.

"I knew I couldn't have him. I tried to," he cringes, clutching his shoulders. James bends down onto his knees, and Natasha crouches with him. She wraps her hands around his, trying to loosen the hold he has on himself. Limited success. He's going to have bruises on his right shoulder.

"James."

"I tried to kill him," he grits out. "I grabbed her and I _threw_ her, because I didn't want them to have him." He makes a high-pitched noise. She rubs her thumb into his skin, and into the metal.

"But they lived. And they tried to make me forget him. Over and over and over again. But I held him." He finally lets go, staring at his mismatched arms. "I got away. And I held his feet between my fingers." His voice is cracking around the edges. "His skin was so soft."

"James."

He glares at her.

"They took _anything_ worth having away from me. Anything good, anything left to save. If he's..." James closes his eyes. "My Alexei is gone." His lips are still shaking. "I can't go back. I can't go back, I don't want it!"

James curls into himself, and Natasha lets him rock through the anger and sadness. She strokes his back, her palm warm between his shoulders. They're both getting drenched, surrounded by the smell of wet stone. It doesn't matter. James is speaking, and the words are spilling out in a strange medley of languages. Hebrew and Russian and Brooklyn-accented English. Antiquated German. He's breathing in morse code. His voice is ragged and weedy, but she recognizes enough of it. Protestations they both learned and unlearned long ago. No. Please. Stop. They both know better, but sometimes it is comforting to hear the old words again, like a fractured prayer.

"You don't have to," she presses the words into his shoulder. "You don't ever have to go back."

He's choking on the sounds coming out of his gut, purging all the anger from his system.

"I can't- you don't understand." His entire body is heaving and swaying, and she settles beside him to carry his weight. "I don't know how to." He shudders, rain streaking off him in a disturbed burst. "There isn't anything left anymore. They took everything from me. If I don't," he coughs. "If I don't obey. There's nothing else left of me."

Natasha rubs his back.

"Then build something new. Like you said. It takes seven years for all the cells in your body to regenerate. So in seven years, the person you think you are now will be gone. You'll be someone new."

James shakes his head.

"There's nothing left." He pants. "I thought. When I heard the words I thought." He closes his eyes. "He looked up at me and he wasn't going to fight me and he said." James mouths something, but lightning flashes at an inopportune moment and Natasha doesn't catch it. "I thought without the mission, maybe there would be something. Maybe there could be him. But I was wrong," he gasps. "Anything good that came from me is gone. If he sees that. It won't kill me." He sighs. "Nothing will kill me anymore. But I might kill him." He glares ahead of him. "I can't let that happen."

"You mean Steve." She watches the expression on James' face shift. "He won't find you if you don't want him to." She struggles to derail her thoughts, but she can’t help noticing the avenues of escape, and it’s comforting to list the weapons she’s carrying.

“He’s stubborn. He’ll keep looking, until he dies.”

Natasha stands. James watches her as she stretches.

"I guess you'll just have to be faster than he is." She holds out her hand. "Are you coming back inside?"

His eyes are glassy. James stares at her open palm. There's nothing there. Just bare skin. He knows she's armed, but there are no surprises waiting for him there. He grits his teeth, and takes her hand.

"Lead the way."

He understands what she's offering. They head back to the abandoned apartment, and it takes them half the time to return that it did to leave. James wandered, not caring where he landed, and now they use the fastest route.

She climbs into the apartment first, scanning the single room as she swings her legs through the window. It's as empty as they left it. The broken spoon is still on the floor, undisturbed. The door is locked and there's a trap set up above it. They're as safe as they ever are.

Natasha insists that she take the first watch. James barely argues with her, and it seems like he's pulling the words out of his throat more out of habit than because there's any feeling behind them. It demonstrates how vulnerable he is, how willing to be manipulated he has become. She wielded the information correctly. He shoves his body down into the cushions and rocks himself, face covered. It takes two hours for him to fall asleep on the dingy mattress. He makes noises in his throat, and his grip on the grimy blanket is firm.

Natasha waits.

She watches until his eyelids flicker. First, her shirt, abandoned on the counter. She unzips her pants, letting them drop to the floor, and then spits in her palm. Tugging her underwear to the side she brings the wetness between her legs. Vaseline would be better, but her body is prepared to compensate during such occasions. She coaxes her muscles. Not too loose, just enough to avoid unnecessary discomfort.

He moves fast when she mounts him, barely awake before he has Natasha on her back, metal thumb digging into her shoulder, paralyzing her. She can see the whites of his eyes. He has her pinned. An untenable position except she _knows_. He can smell her. The bare skin of her legs is soft, and she suspects he can feel her smoothness even through his thick denim pants. And she can feel him in turn. Thick and hard and probably aching already. She's been told that's what it feels like, an ache. Adrenaline and arousal are consuming him already.

"What are you doing?"

She bends her neck up to him. Nuzzles his cheek with the tip of her nose. She can feel the creases of his face relaxing underneath her touch.

"Natasha. Please. I."

"Just doing what is necessary." She rests her head back against the lumpy cushion. "Like you said."

He shudders. He releases her shoulder. The blood comes flowing back and it hurts, distracting, but she knows there will be no permanent damage. Ignored. He is shifting away from her, and she wraps her legs around his hips, locking her ankles behind him. Exerting pressure against the back of his thighs, she pulls him back. Closer. Until they are breathing with the same air. She can feel his heart pounding in his chest, like it's trying to break out and tear away her ribcage and make a place for itself beside hers. It's a gruesome thought. A useless distraction.

She keeps pulling him against her, but he pauses, leveraging the metal hand to stop with his lips inches from hers.

"This is-"

She flips him before he can finish the sentence. He's not expecting it. His body tenses as she tops him. She rocks her hips against him, and his body is reacting underneath her. It feels like. She rolls her groin in a heavy, slow circle. His lips are shaking but he's not speaking, the sound is like a throat that's been closed, choking on nothing. She unzips his fly, tugging him free before he can argue with her. On instinct, he touches her, and his fingers are feather-light on her waist. Touching her like she's fragile, even though they both know exactly how fragile she really is. She leans down, proving it. He barely responds and the words flicker across her wide open eyelids. _Was I your first kiss since 1945_? Not that it matters. The kiss is just the prelude, an initial contact, triggering the activation of the chemicals and pheromones she needs to use to override his training. His body senses hers- she can feel it reaching for her, prodding her in the stomach. She knows how to do this. How to exert her weight against him, letting her breasts drag across his torso. She knows how to kiss; when to suck his bottom lip and when to spread hers and bring his tongue into her mouth. She can taste the last remnants of their meal on his teeth, but soon it fades away and there's just him. Cracked lips and soft tongue. It tastes like. She breaks away from him and takes a breath.

"Let me have this," she reaches down, her hand pressed between them. He's warm in her palm. Her fingers barely close around it. She squeezes. His breath catches.

She kisses his neck, his shoulders, sucks on his earlobes. He doesn't melt, but he doesn't shove her off. He's very still under her ministrations. It's easier when they don't struggle, or try to improvise. Her system has been perfected by the best minds of the Soviet Union and the United States. She doesn't need assistance. She makes the correct noises, sighing and gasping as she tugs her underwear to the side again.

He grabs her thigh as she begins to sink down. She waits. He looks like. His eyes are on her face, and he's looking for something there. She is determined to deliver it, whatever it is. Truth is a matter of circumstances. As long as she does nothing to contradict the assumptions that have already been made about her, she can be who she needs to be: all things to all people at all times. He lets go of her leg, and she sinks down. It stings, sharp strain in her muscles as she expands to adjust to the breach. She ruts, shifting up and then down. The friction will be sensational for him. She squeezes her internal muscles, taking control of his body. She lays a hand on his chest so she can feel every hitch in his breath. Everything is working correctly. The sensations are going to overwhelm him. She knows how this works.

"Natasha," he's whispering, "Natasha, why, Natasha, Natasha." She looks down at him.

"It's all right," she can feel his testicles start to tighten when she settles back down. She strokes his cheek. "This is what you and I were trained to do." She quickens the pace, and he whimpers. Sighing, she flexes her nether muscles, imitating the orgasm response. He groans, and his grip on her hips tightens, digging bruises into her muscles. She feels him shuddering inside her, feels hot, sticky dampness sliding between her legs as she continues to thrust. Reaching down, she rubs circles into the back of his neck.

"James, it's all right. You're with me now James." He's biting his lip, eyes closed tight, but he responds to her voice. She holds his face in her hands, speaking softly, comforting. She will need to hold him through the night to fully imprint onto his senses.

She learned this. _"It goes beyond a simple seduction,_ " he had said. _"A seduction is a temporary means to a temporary end. What you and I are going to accomplish,"_ he smiled, holding her chin in his hand. _"Well. Let's just say I have permanent plans in place for you."_ It was an important lesson. In the Red Room, she learned how to kill. How to use a gun or a knife or her own hands to end a life. Pierce taught her how to destroy, from the inside out.

It should be easy enough to groom this asset, after tonight. Natasha rests for fifteen minutes, then nuzzles against him after she pulls him out of her. There's a mess between her legs, but she ignores it, pressing herself against him. She slips her fingers underneath the hem of his shirt, peeling it away so they can be bare-skinned together.

_"You're not just here to destroy, Natalia."_ He was always reminding her. _"You have to replace everything that you take."_ He was so proud when she learned how to smile.

"James," she coos into his neck, stroking his bared chest. "I'll keep you safe. You won't have to go back." Say what needs to be said, take control. You are the one consuming, and your target is the one that is being consumed. This is just one mechanism in your arsenal. Pierce taught her how to snuggle.

Neither of them will sleep. It doesn't matter. Their breathing returns to normal, in synch. It's not part of the recruitment process, but Natasha thinks it might have some symbolic significance. Their bodies can rest here together, cooling in the approaching dark. They are as safe here as they ever are, which is to say, not at all, not really. They're both weapons. They're not the kind that get left in storage for very long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first really explicit sex scene! Plus some not-at-all veiled references to Pierce being completely inappropriate. 
> 
> Now that I'm reaching the end of editing this beast, I'm going to try to stick to weekly updates instead of bi-weekly. You're welcome/I'm sorry.


	27. Antibodies

They move without discussion. Removing every trace of themselves. The mattress will have to be burned.

Her phone rings. James pauses, holding the matches over the stained blankets. Natasha nods as she answers the phone. She recognizes the number; it's a Stark Industries landline. She knows Tony wouldn't use the landline. Not his style.

"What's up, Doc," she answers. "Have you finished that project I gave you?"

"Thank God. Nobody else is picking up."

Her gut feels like its made of stone. She glances at James, busy disposing of the evidence. They need to move before the room fills up with smoke. She follows him out the window, phone pressed to her ear.

"What's wrong?"

Bruce's voice is calm, but she can hear the panic he's trying to keep under control.

"Thor. He's. Jane Foster got into some trouble, he went after her, and now I can't find either of them. They're completely off the grid. The tracker Tony gave him has been deactivated." She knows he's grimacing. "He's a God, I mean. What can happen to him?"

"Well," she follows James up to the roof. "London."

Bruce groans.

"Right. So I tried calling Tony, but he's in some big fight with Pepper and I think he's not taking any calls until he fixes it. And Clint is-"

"He's on an assignment." She's been monitoring his progress. He last checked in three hours ago. "And Steve has a project of his own."

"I don't know what to do. I can't," Bruce huffs. "I don't think I can help from here."

"It's all right." James is looking at her. He must have picked up on the tone of her voice. Firm and conciliatory. She waves him ahead and he takes the lead. They need to get out of the city. Too many hours in one place. And now she has something else she needs to do. "Send me the coordinates of his last known location. I can pick up the trail from there."

She doesn't listen to Banner's response before she hangs up. Ahead of her, James is breaking into a car. She joins him, tossing their equipment into the back seat.

"Change of plans," she steps ahead of him, settling into the driver's seat. James walks around the car, joining her on the passenger side.

"What was that about?"

"There's a detour I need to make. I'll drop you at a safe house while I run my errand. It shouldn't take more than a few days." It's not protocol to leave a fresh recruit alone this early in the process, but there's no better option. She can't take him with her, not when she knows so little about the situation on the ground.

* * *

Natasha borrows a plane from S.H.I.E.L.D. when she reaches Madrid. It's an old model. If Coulson cares, he can bill her. Sleep is unnecessary, speed is essential. She knows how to fly to avoid detection. The inconvenience is only necessary because she has not been cleared to fly and does not wish to be shot down. It's difficult once she's close to the United States, but she manages to fly above an oblivious civilian airplane. No one is looking for her up there, so she coasts into Arizona easily enough. She programs the plane to fly to New York, taking a meandering route, wipes her prints, gathers her supplies, and jumps. She lands near a mall. Transit from there would be difficult if she shared Rogers' qualms about stealing. She doesn't waste her time on concerns about the affluent family whose all-terrain vehicle has a spare key conveniently stored in the glove compartment. The radio presets are all opioid Evangelical talk shows. She definitely doesn't feel guilty.

She drives to the spot where Thor was last in communication while downloading Jane Foster's most recent internet searches, documents, and emails. The location is on a stretch of vacant highway. Repurposing an overhead satellite, Natasha scans the landscape for the telltale mark of an Asguardian traveler. She hides her tracks, overloading the satellite's server. She intends to have resolved the problem long before anyone realizes what she's doing. Gather data. Thor is powerful. She'd memorized Clint's file about Thor before meeting the man in person, and her own observations were similar. Superior strength and combat abilities. Distinct lack of fear. High alcohol tolerance, which suggests resistance to known poisons. Natasha suspects that Loki's scepter is capable of incapacitating or killing him, but she knows there are few man-made weapons that could really threaten him. A well-trained military strategist, (though vulnerable to emotional attacks) his adherence to communication protocols is historically stringent. The fact that he has been missing for days suggests.

Serious security threat. Bruce was right to call her.

She finds the mark, miles away, and she retraces Thor's steps using borrowed satellite images. Comparing the images to Foster's digital files, Natasha compiles a map of locations where either one of them would have been vulnerable to attack. She eliminates public spaces where Thor might have been captured (his celebrity status means any spotting would have been tweeted if not televised), and uses civilian security cameras to monitor Foster's movements over the past two weeks.

Natasha spots the agent.

Even if he wasn't caught on camera at every opportunity like an amateur, his posture gave him away. Too alert. Too focused on his target. Anyone half-trained would have spotted him immediately. Of course, Foster is an esteemed astrophysicist, and Thor renders the word 'stealth' meaningless on most occasions. Neither mark had the baseline training necessary to notice the tail. Natasha takes screenshots of the agent, rendering a composite image. In the meantime, she monitors the low volume of traffic in the area. If someone were to stage an abduction nearby, the odds favor the abductor. The area provides little by way of cover, the land is flat and the flora are minimal. But not a single car has passed her, and the weathered condition of the asphalt suggests this is standard. And judging from the cloud coverage, flash storms would not be uncommon, either. Any commotion caused by Thor's significant powers would not look unnatural.

She runs the image through every database she can access. There's a DMV match, but the record indicates that the licensee died several years ago. Natasha examines the image before deciding that either her target is the evil twin every American soap opera warned her about, or the DMV was given incorrect information. The death certificate she finds confirms the latter. Fake. Natasha keeps searching, following the trail left behind by the death certificate. Doctor, witness. There are photos of both, as well as connections to half a dozen other fraudulent death certificates, saved in the public record. She uses the photos to search security cameras in the area.

All of her targets have been seen within a five mile radius of one location. A private building, zoned for commercial offices. Natasha checks ownership records, and the trail ends with the false name on the title. But a public search of the address tells her enough. It's a satellite office for the North Institute.

There's no way to access the building schematics. Natasha assumes anything she does find will be out of date, if not fabricated entirely. The best she can do is estimate the number of patrols based on the square footage. She can do more when she arrives.

As she drives, she sends a message to Bruce. No details. After all, the North Institute has been following her for at least a month. If they don't already know she's on her way, there's no reason to alert them. Stealth is her best weapon, at least until she has more data. What is their end goal? Where is their funding coming from? Are they after all of the Avengers? It will be difficult to keep them all safe if that's the case. Rogers has Sam. Barton is on a military base in Pakistan. Banner is in Stark tower. Stark? Couldn't be reached. One problem at a time.

She abandons the car a mile away from the target, closing the rest of the distance on foot. Low-population town, well-supplied and ordinary. An excellent place to disguise one's base of operations. Her clothes are shabby after the extent of her travels, but all of her weapons are concealed and her scent is barely noticeable. She will be mistaken for a surly teenager. Not the best disguise, but it's her best option. The benefits of changing her attire don't outweigh the amount of time she would waste doing so.

Natasha finds a vantage point in a church bell tower on the other side of the street, watching the entrance to the North Institute. The building's welcoming facade conceals an extensive array of security cameras. Midday is not the ideal time for an infiltration.

She can get in.

Her grappling hook lands and digs into the railing lining the roof. Natasha tugs on it, testing the line. From where she's standing, the roof is vacant. There is no one there to cut the rope and if someone arrives to do so before she's reached the other side, she has a 50% chance of survival as long as she lands properly and runs fast enough, which isn't bad. She'll be less lucky if someone down below notices her and shoots, but if every agent working with the North Institute is as unsubtle as the one that had been tailing Foster, her odds are better than 80%. And this approach is more viable than shooting her way in through the front door. Especially since this might not be a rescue mission.

She tethers the end of the rope and rides down the line.

Natasha flips up onto the roof when she reaches the other side. She reaches down and retrieves the hook, pressing the retraction button. The line splits in the center and draws backwards. The evidence of her invasion gone, Natasha compresses the hook, storing it in her belt. The blades are a useful weapon, and she can only estimate what she's walking into. She has seventeen knives and six guns stored on her person, but she's ready to improvise if necessary.

The door to the roof opens with minimal lock picking. Her eyes adjust while she descends the stairs. No active cameras. She expects to find them further inside. She can hear two bodies, medium build, patrolling the corridor beneath her. Natasha presses her back up against the wall, descending in silence. They pass her without a word. Natasha shadows them, absorbing details as she passes unmarked doors and pristine walls. Not a high-volume area, only one camera she has to take pains to avoid. The guards ahead of her aren't chatty and reveal no useful data. Well-trained. Traveling in pairs. Acceptable, but she's not here to be impressed. She follows them only as far as the emergency stairwell. There is a crude map beside the door. No substitute for building schematics, but if the layout of the building is similar this floor, she can piece together an accurate estimate. Disabling the alarm, she slips inside. The bare concrete is clean and unmarked. Utilitarian. And unused.

She has already judged based on the support structure that there are several basement levels. It would be the best place to store hostages, if Thor and Jane Foster are indeed here. And unharmed. Skipping the stairs, Natasha vaults over the railing, hopping from one to the other, letting gravity do most of the work as she bypasses several floors on her way to the bottom. Faster that way. Minimizes the risk of being caught. Upon landing, Natasha disables the alarm on the last emergency exit door. She can hear more patrols on the other side. Heavier. More weapons. She has a few options. Perfectly capable of taking them all down, but the absence of seventeen security officers would be noted almost immediately. Possible to lure one of them back here, steal their uniform, and incapacitate. Not practical. Her best option is to look shy and occupied. Her clothing is nondescript enough to pass, as long as her performance is unobtrusive enough not to merit a second glance. She slides a mousy blond wig into place, donning a thick pair of glasses.

Shoulders hunched over, she opens the door, closing it like she cares about how much noise the handle will make as it clicks into place. Natasha walks like she knows where she's going, stepping politely aside with a thin smile. No one wastes a second glance on her.

She makes it through half a circuit of the building before she finds the entrance to the basement. By now, she's been caught on camera; no way to avoid them without rousing suspicion. She doesn't anticipate immediate facial recognition, the glasses will have obscured enough of her face to make that difficult. But any security personnel worth their weight will notice her soon enough. She's an unfamiliar presence in a heavily regulated system.

The basement is of course secured, with an armed guard at the entrance and a keycard lock on the door itself. Means there is likely a high-value target below. Possible to fight her way in, but not necessary. Would draw too much attention too soon. Natasha keeps circling, aware that she's running out of time. Boiler room. Private, unsecured. Worst-case scenario, she's prepared to drill her way through the wall. She steps inside like she's planning on a clandestine smoke break, and smiles brightly at the first guard she sees. He nods back at her, the corner of his lip twitching empathetically. Not trained to be on the alert for friendly behavior.

She shuts the door behind her and shrugs out of the behavior. The room is neatly organized, with five boilers and two back-up generators. The metal platform beneath her gives way to stairs going half a floor deep, but there's a shadow behind the second boiler where the wall gives way. Natasha investigates. Light would attract too much attention, so she throws a penny, listening to see how far it falls. Far enough. She hoists herself over the boiler, ignoring the press of heat against her skin.

When she lands, a thin layer of dust rises beneath her feet. It will soften her steps. Her eyes stop aching in the darkness, and she breathes. The air is sulfuric and electric. Ahead of her a thin corridor stretches into a thin flicker of artificial light. She moves forward. The ceiling swoops low, grazing the top of her head after fifteen steps. After seven more, she has to crouch. Her internal map tells her that she is heading in the correct direction, by way of the front of the building. The depression in the floor above her is due to the increased need for support at the western corner of the building. Natasha can hear sounds the closer she comes to the light. It's bright, and jagged, and it gets bigger with every step she takes.

Five feet away, she can see clearly enough to know that the light is fractured by a thin metal grate, one that she can easily dispose of. There's a table leg at the center of it, which will provide cover for her should she need to move quickly. Natasha presses her face up against the grate, watching.

The laboratory is bustling, but well-ordered. There's a command station with several monitors. One is depicting vital signs, while another is providing analysis for what looks like an ongoing experiment, though Natasha can't understand the specifics from her vantage point.

"Hey!"

Natasha doesn't cringe, because she is sure that she has not been spotted. She sees a pair of small feet darting across her line of sight, followed by an angry set of boots.

"Thor!" Natasha concludes that Jane Foster is speaking, based on the vocal pattern she recognizes from the surveillance videos she scanned. She doesn't have full visual, but Foster is dragged away from an area over Natasha's left shoulder, which indicates that Thor is present, though his status is still unclear. Natasha scans the room, but there's no visible indication as to whether or not Thor is dead or alive. Foster hasn't given her enough information, and Natasha doesn't want to act until she has more information.

Well. Foster isn't a professional. And she doesn't know that help is coming.

By Natasha's head count, she has enough bullets to take down everyone in the room, with plenty left over for inflicting injuries and blocking escape routes during a firefight. Getting out will be the challenge, especially if she has to drag an unconscious Thor over her shoulder. She can do it, but she'll have to adapt her plans. Natasha ignores the impulse to growl. Foster needs to give her more information, or she needs to find a better vantage point. By now her presence will have been brought to the attention of security personnel, footage reviewed to find her current location. They might not know where she is, but Natasha is sure by now that they will know who she is. Still wanted dead, no doubt.

Foster is dragged into full view. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is tangled. Natasha surveys her, but she seems mostly uninjured. Irritated and frightened, but hiding it well for a civilian. The guard hovering beside her is being careful. Useful data. Foster is worth something to them.

"What did you do to him!?" Foster snaps.

A man in a lab coat steps forward. Natasha can't see his face but his voice sounds weathered and even. Military background, mid forties, and judging from the deferential body language of the guards, lab coat is the one in charge. Primary target. Natasha still needs more data. No immediate danger to her charge or herself, so she can wait. On their territory, people tend to think they're safe, like they can discuss secrets without fear. Natasha has taken advantage of this juvenile naivete many times.More difficult to do so in hiding; she can't lead the conversation if they don't know she's there. She'd get herself captured if she didn't have Foster and Thor to deal with.

"Nothing my dear," lab coat is underestimating Foster, chiding her. "He used the Godforce, he will be unconscious for some time yet."

Foster glares over Nataha's left shoulder. Though Natasha can't confirm it, there is a chance that Thor is not permanently damaged. An optimistic outcome.

"That machine." Foster is seething. Angry. Natasha is fond of that quality, even though it is not currently improving the situation. Anger can push the limits of endurance. "You tricked him, orchestrated that attack." Natasha does not groan, but she feels the sensation of one clawing up her throat. Thor is extremely suceptible to deception. She assumes it is an Asguardian flaw, because Loki was supposedly the best trickster they had. It took less than ten minutes for her to tear him apart. "All those people." Foster cringes. Natasha did not see any reports of missing or deceased people nearby. She will have to investigate further. Possible the North Institute was using holograms. "I _told_ you it wouldn't work! You won't be able to lift it, let alone use it!"

The hammer. Natasha is aware of the folkloric qualities of the weapon. At first she suspected Barton was editorializing, embellishing his report for his own amusement, but she has confirmed that the hammer cannot be picked up by most. The rules of 'worthiness' seem arbitrary.

"We do not intend to use it as a weapon." Lab coat crosses the room, and Natasha catches a glimpse of his face. No one she recognizes, but that means nothing. New faces come cheap. "We will break it down into its component parts." Lab coat turns, and Natasha can hear him smirking at Foster. "Asguardian technology has eluded us until now. But we have the foremost expert on Asguard right here. You will build our machines."

Well, now Natasha knows what they're after.

She has a second to wonder if this project is separate from the kill order out on her and the other veterans of the Red Room before she's dragged backwards, a cloth damp with chloroform pressed over her nose and lips. Heavy concentration of the drug, she'll only have a few minutes. Natasha stops breathing immediately, wrapping her thighs around her attacker's hips. Her extremities are already tingling. Natasha twists, getting herself on top and slamming her shoulders into the assailant's chest, ramming them into the floor. No response. She can hold her breath for two minutes during strenuous activity. The assailant feels slender and strong, unnaturally so. Natasha grasps the hand over her mouth, searching for a pressure point in the wrist, but the limb is entirely mechanical. She can taste the sweetness on her tongue. Natasha activates the cuffs on her wrists, reaching for the waist beneath her, sending an electric bolt through the body trying to overtake her. It shocks Natasha as well, but she's able to jerk away, removing the drug-soaked rag from her mouth.

Natasha slams her body up against the opposite wall in the cramped vent. She gets a good look at her attacker- wiry and feminine but the features are expressionless. Android. Natasha knows the sounds of their scuffle will have been audible to the laboratory, she doesn't have long, how was it able to move so silently-

Her body lurches forward, her vision going blurry. Natasha recognizes the effects of a tranquilizer, must have been injected in her thigh during the scuffle, she thinks that's how she would have done it, and her eyes shut.

* * *

Her head feels sore and her mouth feels dry. Natasha doesn't move, doesn't let her body gasp like it wants to. She has been thoroughly disarmed. Her limbs feel weak and useless, but the urge to twitch and restore optimal circulation is not useful at present. Sedatives and other drugs filter through her system swiftly, and it is likely that her captors are not aware that she is conscious yet. She keeps herself still, listening. Natasha can convert this to a workable situation. In fact, she is closer to her marks. Excellent.

She can hear the android. Lightweight material, but powerful. Natasha will have to find a way to deactivate the machine. Find the power source, destroy it. The skirmish will most likely result in minor personal damage, but she can use the fight to her advantage. Cause enough collateral destruction, and she can clear an escape out of the building.

Foster. Still arguing. The content of her complaints is no longer relevant. The woman's voice is rough, but Natasha senses anger, not injury, to be the cause. Foster is a valuable asset, and incredibly fragile. It means that she will be safe from harm. Natasha will have to make sure that Foster is not removed during the impending struggle. It will be a distraction. It will be difficult to ensure that Foster remains uninjured. Worst-case scenario, Natasha will allow her to remain captive, knowing that she will remain relatively secure until a second extraction can be attempted.

Thor will insist upon giving chase, and it will be nearly impossible to deter him. Might be necessary to suggest that Foster will be in more danger if he does so. Acceptable to use guilt and shaming tactics to encourage his cooperation. Subtlety will not be useful. If Natasha can release him, she can use him as an asset. If his strength has returned, even a fraction of it, he will be useful when she breaks out and starts fighting. She can hear him breathing to her right, which orients her in the lab. The sound is muted, through two layers of steel glass. Incredibly dense, nearly impossible to break. Generally requires a diamond-headed drill, or a pressure destabilizer, or a weapon of godlike capacity.

Since Thor isn't currently arguing for Foster's release, and he's untrained in covert behavior, he is probably still unconscious. Not useful yet.

She has a solution.

Natasha groans as she moves, holding her head. Imitate a hangover, disorientation, confusion, breathe heavily. Gasp. Blink, as if the lights are brighter than they really are. She pulls herself up, onto her knees. Not an aggressive stance. She lets her arms tremble a little. Very few people take notice of the performance, but that's her intention. Uninteresting. Pretend to be beaten. Pretend to be helpless.

"Hey..." of course, no one responds. She licks her lips- they are dry, cracked, she lets it sting. "Hey!" Still, limited response, though the head technician clearly heard her. Good. He's ignoring her, acting like she's a child in a time out. People don't treat real threats like children. Natasha sets her jaw, makes herself struggle to stand, like her footing is unsteady. Takes wobbly steps forward. She presses her hands to the glass, pushing. Exactly as she expected. She slams a fist against it, minimizing the pain by making the fleshiest part of her hand the point of contact. No need to damage the bones in her fingers, or the joint of her wrist. They won't be inspected closely enough.

"Hey!" She shouts. "Let me out!" She curses in Russian. The Android is ignoring her. Standing at attention, awaiting command with a dead expression. Nothing Natasha has done is triggering it. She makes her shoulders slump. She takes a step backwards, pretending to look for weak spots in her prison. There aren't any. The containment chambers have been modeled after a S.H.I.E.L.D. design, the same one made for Loki in the helicarrier. Not a viable solution long-term. But enough to hold someone mortal. Natasha knows the flaws and weak points of this prison intimately, knows why the design failed, knows she doesn't have the same developed skills that Loki possessed. Science on Earth pales in comparison to that of Asgaurd. It's incredibly frustrating. But. She has a solution.

"God damn it," she places a tone of concealed fear into the words, "let me out of here!" Begging is a convincing way to lie. No one expects a beggar to have a solution.

Lab coat finally looks at her, and she glares, betraying a semblance of anxiety as she takes a half-step away from the glass. Giving ground. He approaches her with a wide smile, and Natasha expects she will be able to distract him, retrieve confirmation of her suspicions, and locate the designs for the android with ease. And he's far away from Foster, which is ideal. She's restrained in a corner, forced to study a series of schematics. But she's interested in what Natasha is doing.

"Are you comfortable, Natalia?"

She twitches when she hears that name, though it's not a surprise. It will make him feel powerful if he thinks that he has succeeded in making her uncomfortable. She'll let him underestimate her.

"Who are you?"

He smiles. "Vassily Ilyich Ulyanov, Miss Romanova."

_That was never my name_ , she almost says, but she ignores the useless impulse. "You know who I am." She swallows, imitating fear. Foster isn't falling for the charade, but she's smart enough not to do anything. "You've come after my sisters and I." She grits her teeth, showing herself to be prepared for the worst. Most captives make a show of false bravado at moments like this. "Why didn't you just kill me?"

Ulyanov chuckles.

"Yes, we do intend to. But right now, you're more valuable alive." Without looking, he snaps at the android, and it jerks to attention by his side. "Did you like her?"

Natasha frowns, acting as if she requires further information about her opponent.

"She was designed after all of you. Faster of course, and much stronger. More malleable." He touches the android's face, stroking its cheek. Natasha offers him an ill-concealed cringe, understanding that there is an insinuation in the gesture he's making. He notices, and preens. She's read him correctly.

"An imperfect design, to be sure. The files we bought from your friends back in Russia were incomplete." He shrugs. "I wouldn't have issued a kill order on all of you if I'd known."

Natasha chokes. "Of course not," just enough to fill the silence.

"We converted your rewriting program to a more binary model." He smiles again at the android. "Your combat techniques, your training, all of it can be downloaded in a matter of hours. But there was something missing."

While meekness might make her more appealing, Natasha is sure that adopting an attitude will give Ulyanov the opportunity to beat her down. He will still feel like he has the advantage. She will appear petty and defensive.

"The part where any of this is a good idea? The program was shut down. _I_ shut it down. For good."

"For now." Ulyanov is reaching the point where he is unable to suppress his glee. Natasha is almost embarrassed by how easy this is. His guards aren't even paying attention, the security team is essentially useless. Killing them all will be tantamount to putting them out of their misery.

"Your passion. Your intuition. None of that was written in the program. But it is essential. We own the copyright to the training model now. And once we've accessed your mind and pulled out all pertinent information, we can complete the program and bring our machines to the assembly line." He grins. "Just imagine, an army of women like you."

Natasha makes her muscles tense.

"It won't work. I have nothing of use to you."

Ulyanov shrugs.

"Maybe not. Maybe the human factor is not something that can be defined. Maybe our design will be an imperfect replica. Of course, our prototype managed to subdue you, so it won't matter." He grins. "The mechanical series will be a significant improvement on the faulty biological systems the Red Room produced."

And now she knows the plan. Use the raw materials from the hammer to build machines with Natasha's mind via the переписывать mechanism. Too complex. Too many variables. What an idiotic project. Her solution will effectively shut down the entire program, possibly cripple the North Institute permanently, and teach them that there's a reason she's survived this long. The Black Widow is not an opponent that can easily be taken. The entire laboratory is sufficiently unprepared.

"That's your play." She straightens. "Not good enough."

With that, she reaches for the hammer, and it responds to her call. It shatters through the steel glass with a loud crack, and the handle feels right in her hands. Lightweight, but she can feel electricity all around her. And she feels incredibly strong. Like all the air in the world was as thick as water up until now. Like she can fly. Like the might of her will is going to overcome her opponents.

She takes an experimental kick to the glass, and she's right, her strength has increased. It crumbles. The android is already poised to strike, and Natasha pounces, wielding the hammer above her head. The android tries to catch it, and the metal limbs crumble under the force as Natasha brings it down. The expressionless face is smashed in the process. Spinning, Natasha uses the hammer to deflect a spray of bullets. They ricochet and hit their targets. Blood splatters all over the laboratory.

Foster has wisely taken cover underneath the desk she's handcuffed to, and Natasha makes her way towards her, cracking skulls as she does.

"Are you all right?" Natasha's voice sounds deeper and louder.

Foster is unfazed. "I'm fine. _Thor_ needs you."

Natasha sees the gunmen above them just before they open fire. Enough time to duck. Natasha yanks a panel up from the reinforced floor, bending it with her fingers to provide a reasonable shield for Foster. Then, she grabs the handcuff around the other woman's wrist, snapping the metal.

"Take cover over there. Do _not_ move. I'll grab him and we'll all get out of here. Got it?"

Foster nods.

Smart woman.

Natasha straightens, spinning the hammer in a wide circle. It responds to her unspoken commands. Excellent weapon. Natasha lets it loose, and the hammer flies through the air in a graceful arc, slamming into her assailants. She can hear their bones being crushed as their weapons clatter to the floor. High mortality rate.

She turns, striding towards Ulyanov. She can sense the hammer returning to her and she catches it. She barely feels the jolt go through her arm, despite the speed at which it traveled. Ulyanov is cowering, stumbling as he attempts to back away from her. Would be more efficient to turn around and run, but he's not thinking clearly. He's transfixed by her attack. For effect, Natasha swings the hammer wide, destroying everything in her path. Hard drives. Furniture. Samples. The room reeks of broken electrical equipment and blood. With a few broad strides, Natasha closes the gap between herself and her prey.

"Like I said." He trips and falls over a loose cord, and Natasha looms over him. "Not good enough."

"Please!" He puts his arms up. Natasha slaps his hands away, grabbing the man's neck. She lifts him up, off the floor, and glares into his face. He can't breathe, won't be able to respond. She doesn't care what he has to say.

"There will never be anyone else like me." And with that, she flings him into the shattered remains of her cage. His body is shredded on the sharp glass, and he cracks his skull against the other side. The body twitches, but he's done breathing. Not much time left, there will be reinforcements, trying to regroup just outside the lab. They'll be watching the security cameras, realizing that there's no possibility of recovering this operation. They will decide that the best course of action is to kill any witnesses. Foster is still in danger. Natasha is not willing to accept failure of any kind on a mission this simple.

She slams the hammer against Thor's containment chamber. Denser than hers. Three times, four. Crack! It bends and finally breaks under her onslaught. Thor is stirring, blearily. Irritating. Of course he'll wake up when everything is over, with no intention of cleaning up after himself. Natasha steps through the wreckage, gently tapping his prone body with her foot. He sighs. Natasha looks over her shoulder.

"Foster!"

Jane peeks out from behind her makeshift shield before signaling to Natasha.

"Is he all right?"

"He will be. But in the meantime, you and I have less than five minutes before the rest of these assholes try to take us down." She flips the hammer over, holding the head of it in her palm and offering the handle to Foster. "Do you know how to fly this thing?"

Foster grins.

"Heck yeah."

Foster makes a run for it, and she reaches Natasha just in time; she can hear the sound of heavy footsteps circling them. They'll use gas to subdue them, and then incinerate the entire room just to be safe- but Foster has her hand on the handle of the hammer. Her eyes glow bright and her smile is vicious. Natasha feels the supernatural strength fading, but she doesn't feel drained- she's been trained to endure after strenuous exertion. Foster hoists Thor over her shoulder, gripping his waist. Natasha hangs on to Foster's other side, and shifts as the woman hoists the hammer over her head. Thunder erupts somewhere outside, striking through the ceiling. The building shatters all around them in a brilliant light storm. Natasha doesn't begrudge Foster her minor rampaging destruction. After all, this kidnapping was probably a great personal inconvenience for her. The errand certainly threw off Natasha's to-do list. The walls begin to cave in as the three of them are pulled up and out and away.

They move too fast for Natasha to see, but they land in an open field, and Natasha recognizes the area as a remote lab belonging to Foster. There are a few documents about the place in the S.H.I.E.L.D. files, and Natasha deduced the location based on the date and star patterns ages ago.

Her commute is going to be annoying.

Thor is stirring in earnest now, a deep grumble erupting from his chest. Natasha steps back and lets Foster deal with it, carrying him inside with ease, already chastising him. Natasha begins planning her route, adding errands to replenish her weapons store. She'll have to borrow a few things from Foster. A mismatched knife, a spare screwdriver, things that won't be missed-

"Woah. You're like, the only girl superhero. Can I like, hug you?"

Natasha recognizes Darcy Lewis, and she braces herself for the hug she knows is coming despite whatever response she offers. She supposes that she could have mentioned she's covered in blood, but it doesn't seem worth it. The hug will make Lewis happy. Despite the blood.

"Woah. You're really sticky. I was not expecting that."

Natasha shrugs.

"I could probably use a shower. And any spare knives you have."

Darcy nods.

"Yeah, that fits with my headcanon for you. We have a shower, and lots of interesting soaps, and like more knives than normal people should really have. I'll show you around and make popcorn and have you ever pained your toenails? Do they have nail polish in Russia?"

"In communist Russia," Natasha deadpans. "Nails are what we eat for breakfast. They polish you. From the inside."

Darcy cackles. Natasha thinks this is an acceptable response.


	28. Seminal

She gets Banner on the line when she’s clear of the border.

“Darcy wants to know why you didn’t stay. She was making tea.”

Natasha chuckles.

“I have shit to do. How’s it coming?”

Banner makes a small noise in the back of his throat.

“This is a lot more complicated than the Insight technology.”

Natasha adjusts her tone so that it sounds like she is rolling her eyes.

“Of course it is. Hydra’s not letting this plan fail twice.” She changes her route to avoid a protest taking up half a city block. The benefit of getting lost in the crowd has been negated by the use of smartphones. She doesn’t need a geotagged photo of herself uploaded to the web, not after what she did to the North Institute. Another distraction would be inconvenient. Odds are the program was completely obliterated, but Natasha isn’t going to count on that kind of luck. Habit. “Does that mean you have it?”

Banner groans.

“I just want to remind you that this is not my specialty-”

“That’s not an answer Banner.”

“Maria and I need a few more days to make sure it’s tamper-proof, but yeah. You should be able to redirect the program to attack itself. The systems will all be rewritten with incompatible code and the corrupted files will be completely unuseable. Is that what you want to hear?”

“More or less.”

Natasha turns a corner and locates the hideout. No surveillance, they haven’t been made yet. She walks up the stairs, Banner still chattering in her ear. He’s grown so familiar with her now.

“Do you even know where this thing is going to launch from? You’ll have to be pretty close to the mechanism to shut it down. I can try to increase the range but…”

James is not where she left him.

It is an observation, and does not merit the unfamiliar tingle at the bottom of her spine. Natasha tastes the air: sweat, not old. More bile than food, and the former is fresher. She touches the splintered wood left on the floor, aware that bending over to do so will leave her prone. There is no sound, no sense of presence, and the instinct to remain guarded is not necessary. But she does not correct herself. To an untrained eye, the mess appears to be evidence of a struggle. Natasha knows better. Whatever happened, James left on his own, and he did it with violence.

“Talk to Fury. He might have some idea.”

On the other end of the line, Banner chokes.

“Isn’t he dead?”

Natasha adjusts to include humor in her voice.

“Spoiler alert: Nobody interesting stays dead for long.” Banner starts to say something else, but she cuts him off. “I’ll be in touch.”

Natasha takes careful steps through the room, into the far corner. She doesn't disturb the debris. No, she will walk through his steps, and gain insight.

There are stains on the wall where his shoulders rubbed up against the plaster. On the left side, it crumbled to the floor. The rest of the marks can be explained by vigorous movement, body oil and a faint trace of blood where the skin on his cheek may have broken temporarily. James would have healed too fast to do real damage to himself. That was not the goal. Natasha tries to replicate the movement but her smaller body doesn't fit in the space in the same way that his would. Even if she extends her shoulders, stretching until they almost pop, she feels small instead of contained. Even on tight rations with heavy exertion, there is too much of him. James takes up space.

She stands, like he would have. Lurches forward, like the unsettled dust around her feet suggests he did. Lets the pain roll through her stomach, though she doesn't need more tangible evidence than what is in front of her. He was sick- no. Repulsed. Knowing that Alexei is gone would have been jarring. An upsetting piece of information.

It was unfortunate that she was forced to leave him while he was so vulnerable. It would have been the opportune moment to extract more information from him. His training is obviously breaking down. Too long without a handler. Too long without a reup in programming. She intended for this to happen. She intended to take him over. 

The ruined wood around the door frame is just collateral damage. It would be unwise to stay in this house another night anyway.

She balances her feet, mimicking the movements carefully, reconstructing the scene in her mind. Feeble steps, yes. Weak. The lack of nutrition will be taxing his body. Of course, he will remember how to compensate, the skills conditioned into every muscle. But his mind is traumatized, and Natasha removed its natural defenses. An uncontrolled mind will be a detriment, more than any injury or neglect to the body.

Her phone alert goes off. Monica Chang. Natasha calls. Chang picks up.

“Steve is fine.”

Natasha doesn’t move.

“What happened.”

Monica delivers her report clinically. Captain Rogers returned to DC, declined a security detail (predictable) and proceeded to drive around without any clear aim or predictable pattern (conclusion: subject felt emotionally compromised and was attempting to recuperate after a stalled mission). Chang monitored him from a distance, running background checks on everyone he encountered. She did her job. Natasha detects a hint of injured pride in Chang’s voice, but ignores it. It’s not as important as what happened when Steve pulled over to help a driver with a flat tire.

“Heart of gold, that one.”

Natasha can’t argue with that.

“She must have been monitoring social media. Captain Rogers was sighted a few miles from where she pulled over, and that stretch of highway was the most convenient route back to his apartment. She must have been waiting for the opportunity all week.”

Natasha makes a noise of concession in the back of her throat.

“She didn’t find the recording equipment I left on him. I have the entire thing.”

“Send it to me,” Natasha is already reaching for the second phone she bought on the way back. She doesn’t have all the necessary anti-spyware programs installed on it yet but it doesn’t matter, she won’t be here for very long. She needs to move. “Was it-”

“No.” Chang knew what she was about to ask. “That’s the thing. It wasn’t him.”

Not James.

“Did you question the operative?”

“Cyanide capsule. No time for interrogation. All we have is what Steve got us. Before he broke the microphone.”

Because of course he did.

“Will this be a problem for continued surveillance?”

Chang snorts.

“Well, he certainly knows I’m on him now. Might give you some trouble down the road, but he hasn’t tried to shake me yet.”

“Stay on him. I should be back soon.” Natasha hangs up. She plugs a pair of headphones into the second phone and plays the recording. There’s a woman, the words are difficult to make out with the sound of Steve’s motorcycle so close to the bug. Simple greeting, nothing significant that Natasha can discern before Steve is knocked out. There’s shuffling, grunting as the smaller woman hefts Steve into the back seat of the car. His breathing isn’t labored. It’s a good sign. He’s only unconscious for a few minutes.

Steve coughing. “What?”

“Listen carefully because your friend is in danger.”

Rustling as Steve moves, trying to sit upright.

“There are people watching me.”

Natasha can hear the smile in the woman’s voice.

“Not close enough.”

“Pull over,” his voice is a growl.

“Not until you listen.”

Steve is using his commanding voice when he says: “I can make one phone call and bring down the National Guard, the best retired Air Force soldier you’ve ever seen, and whatever’s left of S.H.I.E.L.D. before you can blink, ma’am.”

“Don’t threaten me Captain. I’m not going to hurt you. I know you’re perfectly capable of tearing me apart if I try.”

Natasha hears Steve crossing his arms.

“There’s an easier way to get in touch with me. Have you heard of Twitter?”

“I was one of the techs working on the Winter Soldier program.”

For sixteen seconds, there is only the rush of air passing by the car as they drive.

“I should kill you.”

“You won’t have to. I picked you up so I could warn you. The program is still live, and if he fails this next mission, he’s going to be deactivated. It might happen anyway. It sounds like this last one will make him obsolete.” Steve is silent, but Natasha knows that silence. It’s tense. He’s getting ready for a fight. “Do me a favor and don’t share that information with anyone you’re not sure you can trust. It’s worth my life.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The car rumbles, there must have been a quick turn.

“You said it yourself sir. The price is high. But it’s the right thing to do.”

That’s when the shooting begins. Natasha is kicking herself for not returning the Shield to Steve. He clearly needs it.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way. I’d hoped we’d have more time but they’re onto us. The best chance we have is that tail you thought you were lying about. She’ll have called the reinforcements.”

“What!” Steve is focused on getting as much out of this woman as he can.

“Ask Romanoff about that one. That’s her work.” Bullets hit the outside of the vehicle. “When you get out of this, you’re going to have to lie. Tell them I was under orders from Hydra, or crazy or something. Or else everything I told you will be completely useless.”

“I’m not going to do that!” Steve is calculating, but it’s too late, Natasha knows. “I’ll tell them. I can make sure they protect you. I’ll do-”

“That’s nice. But I’m dead anyway. I’m not the kind you save Captain. He is.”

Steve starts swearing, and then the car swerves, and it’s clear that they’ve crashed. There’s a loud crackle as the microphone is discovered, torn away, and then crushed in Steve’s fingers. He’ll be angry with her. Regrettable. Not a setback. And not the primary objective right now. She needs to find James and use him before Hydra can. Whatever information he’s been witholding, it’s time for it to be shaken loose. While he’s reeling from the loss of his son, while the programming is at its weakest.

Natasha does one last sweep of the room before she departs. The mattress is gone, along with any evidence that they were here. He was cognizant enough to take care of that it seems.

* * *

Natasha wastes twenty-two hours searching. Of course he doesn’t want to be found. And he’s been trained well. His defenses are weak, but his instincts are strong. His muscles will twitch at the sight of a camera, turn his face away. She knows how ghosts like them operate. Hide out in the open when you have to move around, stick to the shadows when you can afford to remain still. She knows the route he would have taken from the apartment, but from there it’s a guessing game. Would he have gone down the street crowded with churchgoers, or did he wait for the bars to close and adopt the swagger of the drunks lining the sidewalks? There’s no point in ruminating because he wouldn’t have. The point is to make a random choice, make it impossible to follow you. No patterns. No predictable outcomes.

Which is why it takes time to find him.

It’s another rough building, this one closer to the center of town. Scheduled to be demolished next month, according to the signs Natasha absorbs as she steps through an opening in the fence. He left no footprints, but she knows he’s here. This place is secure, within an acceptable distance from sources of food and water, unmonitored, and there are plenty of vantage points for a seasoned sniper.

She looks up, daring him to try.

He doesn’t shoot. For whatever it’s worth.

He’s waiting for her when she steps inside, the sunlight filtered through cracks in the walls and the decaying ceiling. The floor is littered with scraps of plaster and warped metal and fallen shingles and grime. He’s pacing.

“You didn’t stay.”

He doesn’t look at her, and his body does all the talking. His back is ramrod straight as he paces. His eyes are wide, pupils dark. Even in the low light, they shouldn’t be so wide. He’s moving like he’s being electrocuted, like there’s a live wire somewhere inside his body and it’s the constant state of shock that’s keeping him upright. She waits for a response, but doesn’t receive one.

“James.”

“No.” His voice is raspy. “No. No. I found… no.” He swallows.

It’s a familiar part of the recruitment process. Similar to the stages of grief, it’s as if the subject is separating from the self they were, leaving that part of their life behind in a kind of symbolic death. Natasha had thought they were both immune to such pleasantries, but perhaps not. The woman who sweat and moaned somewhere in Belarus was very different when she emerged. She’d told Steve that without her secrets, she needed to find out who she intends to be. Perhaps she’s due for a ritualistic death herself.

“Hey. You’re all right.”

She comes closer to him, not close enough to touch. She can’t frighten him away, can’t violate him now. Natasha subtly re-positions herself so she’s not standing between him and the exit. He won’t try to run, but he’ll feel safe, thinking that he can.

“James. Talk me through what you’re feeling.” Soft voice, open posture. Faint smile, wide eyes. Look up to remind him you seem small. “You’re safe with me.”

He doesn’t blink as he stares at something far away. His mouth twists. She uses her breathiest voice. 

“You’re safe.”

He focuses on her. “Natasha.” He swallows. “I looked. For you.”

“You looked for me?”

He nods. “About you. I found out who you were.”

He’s using words. Encouragement is necessary. “Who was I James?”

He clenches his teeth.

“I know how to find the Bolshoi.”

Calm. Get what you need later.

“James-”

He clutches his head, eyes closed.

“No!” He takes a step backwards. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She follows him, a slow, delicate dance.

“You won’t. James. You won’t hurt me.”

He glares at her.

“Then don’t ask me.” His voice is raspy and gutteral. “Don’t _ask_ me. Don’t ask me for this.” He bites his lip. Struggling to speak. Fighting against an order. “No, you promised you would end it. You promised. But I can’t.” Tears. He’s crying. She can’t understand why. It’s not advantageous. Not a conscious choice then. His body is crying for support, for safety. She reaches for him, slow steps. Telegraphing her intent. Open hands. She places her palms on his knuckles. Gentle pressure. Natasha waits while he hyperventilates. Makes soft noises with a comforting tone.

“I can’t tell you.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, cynosheck, _Natasha_ , I’m so sorry.” He blinks, rasping. “Why do you need to know so badly?”

She hasn’t considered her response. It’s not a question she thought anyone would ask.

“I need to know.” She pretends to fumble with the words. “I don’t.” She huffs. “They say those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it. They must have rewritten me for a reason. And it’s led me here. I need to know why.”

He nods, but he still looks so sad.

“Pierce,” he whispers.

“What about him?”

He wets his lips. “What did he do to you?”

What does it matter? But she doesn’t bristle or move away. Perhaps if she shares some part of herself, something that looks vulnerable and raw, he will be more likely to do the same. Prove that it’s possible to fight against the impulse to protect their commanders that has been drilled into their bones. It’s a tactic that has worked in the past. And this is something she can give away.

“He was my handler. When I first arrived in DC. You said you looked for me.” She watches his face for a reaction. “What were you looking for that wasn’t in the files?”

He closes his eyes, slow. Opens them again.

“You were there in 1999,” He mutters. She nods, nudging him into elaborating. “New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t recorded.”

Natasha knows the file he means. She was in attendance as Pierce’s companion. Monitoring a certain Senator for him, one that preferred redheads. It was work, and the documents were filed after it was clear that the Senator had been taking bribes from someone he shouldn’t have. Her name was redacted, because she wasn’t a real agent yet. But it was added later, and released with all of the S.H.I.E.L.D. files. And there was a note, added at the same time her name was put at the top of the list of operatives, stating that her recruitment was considered complete after that evening. No other detail was given.

“He spoke to you.”

She nods, because of course he did.

“What did he say.”

She bites her lip. Appear reluctant.

“James…”

He lowers his hands, twisting them to hold hers. His thumbs rub circles into her joints.

“Please. Remember, please.”

She nods. It’s not that difficult, to shift her posture, to remember how they moved together. She was wearing heels, the slender ones that placed all the pressure on the balls of her feet. She’d had to practice in them, find a new center of gravity. Learn to move gracefully in them, like she’d worn them for years, like she was used to walking on nothing. The dress Pierce picked out for her had a sharp silhouette. It was a lavender gray, and it sparkled when the light hit it just right. The back was low, but the skirt flared out enough after her waist that she could conceal several knives and a gun, with extra ammunition, with ease. She had a few sharp instruments in her hair as well, though those weren’t on the official manifest.

She got everything she needed from the Senator early in the evening. A trail, and an invitation to meet him for an ‘after party’ which would get her the rest of the evidence. It gave her enough time to secret herself away from the other guests, find a quiet room away from all the noise, high above the heated crowd. Where the draft from the open window on the west side of the building would keep everything cool.

Barton was there, like was waiting for her.

“Hey there.”

She’d smiled, all confidence.

“Hey yourself.”

She had closed the door behind her, eyes adjusting to the darkness.

“Done with the party?”

She’d shrugged, knowing he could see her.

“For now. Got a minute?”

He had smiled. “I can be very flexible.”

He held out his hand, and she took it, settling herself into his lap. His tie was loose and his collar was still too tight, digging into his throat. She untied it for him, undoing the first two buttons. Smiling. She liked the way he smelled, like licorice and Marlboros. His hands settled around her hips, like a gentleman. She wanted to kiss him. Wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed by him. She looked into his eyes before he did it, not sure which she was asking permission for: The wanting, or the kiss?

He kissed her back, but his hands stayed where they were. She could tell he wanted to move them, because his fingers tightened, digging into her skin beneath the fabric. He could probably feel the straps for her holster. A secret she wasn’t supposed to tell him. She did it anyway. She moved his hands a little lower, until she knew he recognized it. He drew back for air.

“You’re working tonight?”

She nodded.

“Later.” She pressed her forehead against his. “I have time. Pierce won’t be looking for me.”

He bit the inside of his cheek.

“You’re still under his command?”

She furrowed her brow.

“Yes. Why would I transfer?”

He shook his head.

“It’s not. There’s something off about him.” He’d shrugged. “Don’t worry about it for now. I’m the suspicious type.” Then he’d grinned. “How long did you say we have?”

She’s chuckled, pitching her voice deep. “I didn’t.”

Now, she remembers the heat in her belly. She sound of his voice when she ran her teeth across his lower lip. He’d tried, awkwardly, to shift, adjust his pants so the tightness wasn’t as uncomfortable. It made her smile into his mouth.

“Feeling all right?”

He was panting, pupils blown wide.

“I really have no business feeling as good as I do about this.” He rubbed his thumb against her side. “How about you?”

She had considered her answer.

“I feel new.” New in a way that couldn’t be unwritten. Downstairs, the sounds of the party escalated as the countdown began.

“Happy New Year, Natalia.”

She kissed him again.

Now, she watches James watching her. He’s concentrating. “James?”

He shakes his head.

“That was the year all the machines were supposed to explode.”

She nods.

“Were you disappointed?”

His lips twist, more of a frown than a smile.

“A little.” His fingers twitch. “Was he kind to you? This… Barton.”

She swallows. Show fear.

“He pushed me away.”

James focuses on her again.

“When?”

She sighs.

“You didn’t really believe that fairy tale, did you?” She shakes her head. “He asked for my file. I gave it to him. That’s why I was meeting him there.” She still remembers the press of his fingers on her hip, the whispered thank you buried underneath a kiss. His lips lingered against her cheek and he sighed, and it felt like her body was floating on top of him.

“Why did he want your file?”

She shrugs.

“I found out later. He wanted to get me away from Pierce.”

James nods.

“What did he find?”

Natalia remembers the way his eyebrows knit together, the way he scanned the pages of the document and his expression turned grim. She knew she needed to find the Senator, find Pierce for her check-in, but she wanted to erase the last fifteen minutes and keep the file to herself, because she could feel Barton pulling away from her and she didn’t like it. She didn’t understand the feeling, _wanting_ something (someone) so badly. She had never wanted at all. She had survived. She had endured. She had done her duty. Until she turned away.

“Natalia.”

“You knew.” She felt like she needed to attack, and that was at least familiar. She could use words like weapons. She knew how.

“You knew what I was when you brought me in. You fought me. You knew.”

“That’s not-” he shuddered, shaking his head. He looked sick. “That’s not what I’m, you did what you had to do. You have to know that Natalia. What they did to you. It’s not that, I swear it’s not that. You didn’t have a choice.”

“You gave me one.”

He chokes.

“I had a gun to your head.”

She’d grabbed his shoulders, and she remembers how solid they felt in her hands. She wanted to be held by him, and it was such a strange feeling. She wanted to understand it, because she didn’t know what it was like. To want. She had been wanted, and she knew how to use desire to her advantage, but she had never felt any of her own. And now she had it, she would refuse to let him take it away from her.

“You gave me a choice. And I chose you.” She had closed her eyes, trying not to show him too much. “You. Because you saw me and you thought there was still something human.” She had no idea that was how she felt about him. And she resented it. Resented everything about that moment and she wanted to get rid of it, wipe it all away. And she couldn’t. She had left that all behind.

“Natalia, Natalia.” He’d held onto her hands. And she had settled down.

“Why?”

He’d smiled.

“Because I’m an idiot. And I felt… I thought to myself: God, I must be getting older, because she looks so young, I don’t think I ever looked so young.” The creases around his eyes are there, and she feels like she is being comforted. It makes her wince, because comfort is for children and she has never been a child.

“I should have paid more attention. But Natalia, you’re fifteen. This isn’t okay.”

It had made her feel sick, and she didn’t listen to the rest of the words he said, though some part of her mind recorded them. Do you need to go somewhere and I’m sorry and I can get an extraction for you and what was the plan for tonight and I’m going to make a call. And then she was alone, she knew what she had to do. Complete her mission, and make her report.

The Senator was happy to see her, and she played her part. Giggling, breath smelling of the champagne she rinsed between her teeth before spitting it out. Drawing closer to him, being coy but not really shy, smiling when he placed his hand on her knee, toying with the edge of her dress. She would have to be careful, she wasn’t supposed to let him find the knives or the gun. But all it took was some gentle maneouvering, it was easy to convince him to fondle her breasts instead, flicking her hard nipples through the thin fabric. She followed him into the house, mounted him, collected information, and left. Simple work. The car waiting to bring her to Pierce was a block away. She’d barely smudged her makeup.

Pierce didn’t know that she’d met with Barton, and it didn’t matter. He wanted to know what she had learned, and he walked her through the encounter. But she was still full of want, and she pushed him, until he was leaning against his desk. And she knew he’d turned away from her, and it made her angry. She would be beautiful to him again, and she would throw her want away.

“Natalia?”

“You want to know what I learned?”

He caught on, and nodded. He didn’t enjoy it, and it didn’t matter. Neither did she. She shuddered, feeling like she could control it, she could remove it from herself. Her body was her own tool, and she would use it how she saw fit. It would not use her. It would not make her weak or frightened and it would not dictate who she was. Pierce was almost irrelevant by then.

“You did good work tonight, Natalia. I think you’ve proved yourself.” He poured himself a glass of whiskey, and didn’t offer any to her. “He had no idea what you are.” Smug, he rarely allowed himself to be smug. “The documents he’s planning on stealing, those aren’t for him. We’re going to build those helicarriers. It doesn’t seem possible now, but give it a few years, and we’ll have ‘em in the air. And then.” He’d pressed his fingers to her cheek, and she looked up at him. “This will all be yours kiddo. You’re going to inherit this world. There’s no one else fit to run it.”

Now, James is fuming.

“He said that.”

She nods.

“James. It was a long time ago. If you’re upset.” Natasha shakes her head. “I know it was different for you. You knew his plans all along. I should have.” She clenches her jaw. “I was trained to listen, but I didn’t listen to him like I should have.”

James snarls. She waits, but he doesn’t speak. His fingers are clenched in tight fists, and his throat is convulsing, like there are words he’s kept trapped in there. She’s so close.

“James.”

He winces. She has to push him. 

“You can tell me.” He is unchanged. She hardens her tone. “James. I can’t help you if you won’t cooperate.”

He grinds his teeth together, forcing air between them.

“I can’t. I can’t say it. I can’t.”

He bends over, clutching his skull. She follows him down, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He’s too big to fit inside her grasp, but he latches onto her wrists anyway, shuddering and whimpering and heaving as he forces great breaths out of his lungs. “It’s all right, I’m here, it’s all right,” she whispers. “It’s over. It’s all right. It’s over.”

He shakes his head, and she leans closer to him so she can hear. “No, it’s not. It’s not over.”

Natasha slides down in front of him. An easy position for him to take advantage of, with his weight and height, but it’s necessary. Vulnerable in a way she never is, except when she has to be. An untenable position. She rubs her thumb along his cheekbone and he shudders.

“You know what they told me? When I was a little girl, training in Russia.” She has to think back, because was it Russia? Because she’s sure she was older there, but this story feels young to her. “When we had aches, they used to tell us of the day of glory. When the war will end, and all the pain will be over. We would leave it far behind. There would be enough for everyone, it would be warm and vibrant, and we could lay down our weapons and rejoice. This was the future we were fighting for. It was not a future for traitors and cowards. So we had to be brave, and go into battle smiling. The task was to survive, and endure, until the day we could leave the pain behind us.”

He’s listening so hard that when she stops speaking, it’s like a spell has been broken. He blinks, and she gives him a moment to think.

“One more time…”

She nods.

“That’s right. This is the end of the mission, soldier. After this, you can lay down your weapons. And all the pain, and suffering, you’ll leave that behind as well.” She smiles. “You fought so bravely. All you need to do now is let go.”

He swallows.

“The trial.”

She examines him, but his breathing and heart rate are unchanged. “Is she still alive?”

He nods.

“They did not destroy her. They know now what you can do. The last trial is the last one for one of you. If she wins, she will know the location of her son.” He blinks. “We killed him, didn’t we?”

Natasha nods.

“I told her as much. But it will have been rewritten. What happens when I win?”

He stares through her.

“She will tell you the location of the Bolshoi.”

That is the thing that he learned. Natasha feels cheated, in a way she’s not familiar with. It seems anticlimactic, after all the effort they went through so he could defy his commands and say it. She wonders if the taste of disappointment was always there without her noticing, or if this is something new. James stirs, and she helps him to stand.

“You lied.”

She shrugs.

“The truth isn’t all things to all people.”

“But the wars.” He grimaces. “They will never end. The pain, the fighting.”

“The wars never end James. You’ve been around long enough to know that. But the soldiers stop being soldiers after a while. We die. We grow old. Well.” She eyes him. “Some of us do.”

He laughs, hollow and brave.

“You said it could be over for me.”

She takes his hand, squeezing his palm.

“It is over for you James.” She leans in to him, but he doesn’t reciprocate. “For those who remain loyal, who follow orders and obey, there will always be an end.”

He gently removes his hand from hers.

“And what about you?”

She laughs.

“I left.” It’s simple. “As long as I’m a traitor, it will never end for me.”

He stiffens.

“I did something awful.”

“You didn’t betray anyone James." She smiles. "You’re coming home.”


	29. Performance

Algeria. It’s the only hint she has, and Nefertiti knows it is the only one she has. James refuses to stay behind, so when they land she has a second set of eyes looking for evidence of the kind of subterranian lives they lead. Abandoned supply caches. Weapons purchases made in cash. The trail has been laid for them, easy. A brochure left behind in a too-spotless safe house. There’s no point in making it difficult, delaying the inevitable. Natasha will go, because there is no other alternative. You don’t defer a trial.

Timgad is easy enough to reach. Natasha drives most of the way, leaving James with the Jeep a reasonable distance away. He’s not allowed to interfere, but she has no intention of leaving him without resources.

The city feels soft beneath her feet. It was lived-in once, centuries ago. Now all the memories of home and community are turned to sand and dust. Quiet at night, all the tourists are gone. There are echoes of things that prove this was once an important place. Brick walls, empty windows. A well-planned grid, with an archway in the center. Natasha is no historian, she has no way of knowing what any of this might have been. The ancient city is prepared to withstand the damage they inflict on each other. It’s survived for centuries, it can survive them too. There will only be one casualty.

Nefertiti is waiting in the open. No disguise. She would have been alerted to their presence in the country, predicted the amount of time necessary for Natasha to reach her location. Nefertiti is armed, and the one she lost in their last fight has been replaced. The left one sparkles in the uninterrupted starlight. Beautifully articulated joints, integrated with her muscles and synapses. A painful upgrade, Natasha can see the toll in the freshly bitten lips, the hollow cheekbones. It doesn't matter. That part of her body has improved as a weapon and it will be difficult to outmaneuver.

The point of a trial is that it’s not clear who the victor will be.

“You have what I need.”

Nefertiti nods.

“I carry it inside me.”

Natasha feels the burden in her stomach. She’d swallowed it on the way.

“As do I.” Natasha doesn’t offer her hand, but her tone is polite. More suited to dinner conversation than a cold stone city. "Best of luck to you, sister."

After a second of begrudging deliberation, Nefertiti nods. "And to you."

For a moment, Natasha thinks that Nefertiti might want her to win. But they both know that's not how trials work. The fighters don't get to choose who wins. Failure to fight is not an option.

They strike at the same moment, vaulting towards each other. Natasha leaps, high, but the arm is faster than she anticipated, and it wraps around her neck, squeezing, the sharpened, claw-like fingers piercing her skin. She's bloody and choking and she swings her body up to kick Nefertiti in the face. The toe of Natasha's boot lands in Nefertiti's jaw. There's a crack as bone shatters. Natasha lands, anticipating the blood Nefertiti spits in her face. A distraction. Natasha avoids the metal arm, leaning forwards. She wraps her hand around Nefertiti's neck like a dancer, digging the fully charged edge of her newly modified cuff into Nefertiti's jugular.

The smell of the cauterizing skin sticks to her throat as Natasha is thrown backwards. The punch to her sternum breaks bone. Natasha rolls, absorbing the impact so that she can defend herself against the next flurry of Nefertiti’s blows. On the ground, kicks are most effective, and she blocks the roundhouse Nefertiti aims at her. The puncture wounds around her neck are bleeding, she can feel it trickling down the collar of her shirt. Disguising the movement in a defensive stance, Natasha grabs one of her taser discs and flings it at Nefertiti's arm. Temporary incapacitation.

Nefertiti doesn't pause. She flings the temporarily nerveless metal arm, wielding it like a projectile. Natasha dodges the first blow, but has to deflect the second one, fracturing her ulna. It allows her to stumble forwards, leaning in with her wrist to shock the inside of Nefertiti's thigh. The cuff sears the fabric of Nefertiti's suit, sealing it to her skin with a burning hiss.

Natasha pulls back, breaking into a run. Aiming to reach higher ground. She climbs the archway in the center of the square, finding footing on the pillars. Nefertiti throws knives after her, and she dodges, swinging in the air to find better coverage. She’s halfway to the top, and fires her gun, delaying her opponent. Nefertiti takes cover as she tears the taser off her arm, restoring functionality to the mechanical limb. Natasha’s heart is beating in her chest, and she needs a little more leverage, and now Nefertiti is following her up.

“I’m just as fast as you are, sister,” Nefertiti voices Natasha’s thoughts. “Beating me to the top won’t save you.”

Natasha reaches it first, but Nefertiti is close behind her. Natasha aims a kick at the other woman’s head, but she deflects it. Expected it. Nefertiti squeezes Natasha’s leg with the metal claw, and she can feel her old fractures threatening to break again. Natasha lets herself fall forwards, unbalancing Nefertiti. She lets go of her, and Natasha catches herself before she falls off the archway. They both land on the ledge, like tightrope walkers.

There are drones overhead. Blending in with the stars. Waiting. Nefertiti notices them too.

"We don't have to make it easy for them,” she whispers.

Natasha doesn't hide her grin.

"No. No, we do not."

Nefertiti yanks a grappling hook gun from her belt.

“Follow me then.”

She shoots, anchoring the gun down on the archway. Nefertiti uses her left hand to slide down the wire, and Natasha is right behind her. She unhooks her belt to loop it around the wire, following her opponent down. They glide through the air, sparks flying from the friction caused by Nefertiti’s hand. Natasha takes out her gun, one handed, and Nefertiti tries to kick it away. Natasha hangs on to it, sustaining minor bruising to her hand, but she can't lock on to her target. The best she can manage is to fire at Nefertiti's feet, try to slow her down when they finally land.

The wind is whistling in Natasha's ears.

Nefertiti lets go first, and Natasha follows her down, landing into a roll. She's prepared for the assault, the sharp metal fingers dig into the meat of her arm instead of the joint in her shoulder. Natasha doesn’t struggle, knowing it will just exacerbate the injury. She yanks Nefertiti’s knee, allowing the other woman to pull her down with her. They land hard in the dirt and ancient cobblestones, and Nefertiti doesn’t release the talons. Natasha slams the top of her head against Nefertiti’s skull, and she falls backwards. Natasha leverages the opening Nefertiti gives her, sending another shock through her cuffs into the other woman's abdomen. The skin sizzles as she presses against it. Nefertiti digs the fingers in deeper, cutting into Natasha's bone. Neither one of them makes a sound.

They both let go at the same time, rolling away from each other. They stand, synchronized and defensive, before launching into a more intimately scaled attack. Blades glitter in their hands. Slashing with knives, they both end up bloody. Nefertiti uses the left hand like a sword, slicing at every opening, while she uses the smaller knife in her right hand to parry Natasha’s attacks. Natasha’s cheek is open, and Nefertiti’s legs are both slashed.They’re panting, blood dripping on the ground. Natasha allows Nefertiti to back her into a crumbling wall, under cover from the drones for a moment.

“I was told the cost of your victory.” Natasha murmurs. “The location of your son.” Nefertiti stirs. “But you weren’t rewritten last time.”

Nefertiti nods. She's noticed by now, the light-headedness. "Your tactics are inventive. It was determined that my memory of our last encounter should remain intact for it to be a successful lesson."

Natasha nods, her hipbones grinding against the uneven bricks as Nefertiti presses her body against the wall. The arm underneath her chin isn't choking her- yet.

"Do you remember," she coughs, "any mention of Operation: Orphan?"

Nefertiti's eyes flicker.

"This is a thing I have heard. It is not the information I was told to give you. But I think it does not matter now."

There is blood around Nefertiti's lips. Not much time.

"Tell me," Natasha rasps.

"It's the next stage. The final project."

Natasha knows this already.

"Our programming, being used to rewrite all of humanity." Nefertiti's arms are shaking, and her fingers will be going numb. "Three days, that is the projection for completion."

The timeline makes no sense. Three days, but the programming exists. Unless the source of the rewrite is incomplete. But how would they be able to project its completion in three days’ time?

“Why do they need to wait? What piece is missing?”

Nefertiti chokes.

“The Bolshoi. The coordinates are in my stomach.”

Nefertiti falls forward, covering Natasha with her body as her grip loosens.

"Clever. To cauterize the injuries, so I was unable to track the blood loss. Very clever, old spider."

Natasha holds her.

"You fought hard. And now your pain is over."

Nefertiti sighs, bleeding out in Natasha's arms.

When it's done, Natasha tears open her stomach and claims her victory. 

* * *

Natasha takes a sip of water, holds it in her parched mouth until she’s soaked up all she can. It stings the cuts in her cracked lips, and she tastes blood when she swishes against the sore tooth in the back. His eyelids flicker when he sees her approaching. Leaning against the side of their truck, ignoring the nighttime cold. James is where she left him. It’s a pleasant. Well, not surprise.

“You got what you needed.”

She nods.

“Coordinates north of Irkutsk. I can figure it out from there.”

He grimaces.

“And then.” He rolls his lips between his teeth. “Operation: Orphan, you’ll end it.”

She nods.

“I said as much.”

James shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He stands upright, opening the passenger door. “Do you want to drive?”

Natasha’s clothes are sticky with blood. Some of her injuries need attention.

“It doesn’t matter,” she smirks.

He eyes her.

“I will then.” He walks around to the other side of the car. “You could have just asked me to drive.”

Natasha scowls.

“When has asking ever gotten me what I wanted?” It comes out too honest, but it shouldn’t matter. She can twist it to work for her. “You know what asking gets you.”

James shrugs, sliding behind the steering wheel. Natasha rinses some of the blood off her fingers before she sits down beside him. The sandy soil will make the evidence disappear.

“You could have asked me.”

Natasha laughs. It’s not a real laugh, but it’s close.

“You mean like I could have asked you about the trial? You know what they’re testing me for, but you won’t say, will you? You have orders to lead me to the Bolshoi, and you can’t tell me why. Transparency is not our style, James.”

He grimaces.

“Don’t.”

Natasha cuts open her sleeve, investigating the damage above her cuffs. Minor defensive wounds. Most of them are healing already.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look for answers you don’t want.”

She pauses to glance at him, but his eyes are on the road ahead of them. They’re driving without headlights, with just the brightness of the city ahead to guide them.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed James,” she sighs. “But that’s exactly what I’ve been trained to do. So if you’re not going to tell me where I came from, I’m going to find those answers on my own.”

He wheezes, fingers tight on the steering wheel.

“You don’t need it.” His jaw is tight. “You could leave it all. You don’t have to.”

Natasha turns the knife around in her hand.

“You know why I can’t.”

He bites the inside of his cheek.

“You could end it. You could.” He shakes his head. “No. You could walk away, forget all of this.”

She glares at him.

“That is not an option.”

He turns on her. Natasha has enough time to yank the clutch, braking the car as he lets go of the wheel. He has hands around her neck, and she has her legs braced against his chest, but he’s stronger. Not just stronger than her, she figured out how to compensate for that the first time they grappled. No- he is _stronger_. He was hiding his strength from her.

Natasha takes in the deepest breath she can, not knowing when he’ll stop cutting her off. The circulation issue is worse; his thumb is pressing up against her carotid artery, and she can feel herself becoming dizzy. The blood she lost in the fight with Nefertiti was acceptable, but debilitating in this circumstance. Untenable. If she could angle her foot, kick him in the face- but he’s prepared for that maneuver. He holds her there, arms shaking not with the effort but the struggle with his own fractured will.

“If I walk away,” she manages to rasp, “how will I fulfill our arrangement?” He leans away from her, but doesn’t let go. She forces the words out. “You can’t end Orphan on your own, that’s why you need me.”

It takes him a moment, but he lets go. James regains control of himself. Natasha breathes, her lungs convulsing. All the aches that she was ignoring come back to her as the oxygen sets her nerves on fire. She winces, unable to hide it. James reaches for the clutch, shifting gears to bring the car back to life. Natasha coughs, forcing her body to realize that everything is fine, keeping the adrenaline at bay.

“I will bring you where you need to go,” he murmurs.

She accepts his apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this update is so short. It's because the next one is. Long.


	30. Humors

It’s snowing.

It puts them both at a tactical disadvantage. If it were possible to sneak in, Natasha could hide her footprints. It’s not. There’s only one entrance. Natasha was able to download the protocols for securing this bunker. No one goes in. No one goes out. Food is delivered mechanically once a month. No way to send a person instead. No face she can borrow to disguise her way in. The price of entry is blood.

And blood leaves deep stains on fresh snow.

“There’s a good vantage point a block away. You fire at them from above, take out at least ten of them. I can handle the rest.” Natasha doesn’t look at James as she speaks, doesn’t need to. He knows a command when he hears one.

“Ten shots. Then you’ll move in.”

“Confirmed.” She knows that ten shots are all he needs to take out ten guards. She won’t even need to watch him do it. The sound will travel fast enough.

He stands up. She smiles at him.

“See you on the other side, soldier.”

He swallows. Nods. Leaves.

Natasha accounts for all of her weapons one last time. She counts. Seventeen minutes to reach the roof unnoticed. Another five to set up. She’s braced for the first shot when it comes. It’s a small noise, one that she’s become sensitive to. Like dropping a box in an empty hallway. She doesn’t need to turn around to see the body fall. The shouts come next. They’re trying to figure out where it came from. They’re wrong.

The second shot doesn’t reveal James’ location. They figure it out after the fourth. The guards are scrambling now, calling for backup, trying to find someplace to hide. Backup won’t get the message; not after Natasha tampered with their signal tower. They won’t think to use a public network in time. Shot five takes down one more. They’re getting nervous now. These aren’t Hydra’s best. These are the guards left to work a quiet protection detail. Minimal training. Retirement gig. Six.

Natasha has a gun in each hand. Seven. The smell of pine is almost as strong as the smell of gun oil. Eight. There’s a cloud drifting overhead, allowing a hint of sunlight to show through. Nine. Snowflakes are cool on her cheek. Natasha inhales.

Ten.

She stands, abandoning her cover. It doesn’t matter now. She comes in behind the guards, shooting the ones cowering from the sniper fire. They’re easy targets. Three more are trying to set up a long-range rifle of their own. She shoots them next. She’s clear of the tree coverage now, and running. Closing the distance between herself and her opponents, Natasha delivers a roundhouse kick to the first one in her range. His neck snaps; he won’t get back up. The others fall as they reach for their weapons. Natasha aims for their foreheads, faster that way. She has to step over bodies to clear the entire barricade. The area is too congested for anyone to fight effectively. If they try to leave, James takes them down. It’s a perfectly executed plan.

Natasha reaches the door. She does one last check to make sure all of the guards have been eliminated. James fires one last shot, hitting the ground a few feet in front of her. His checks confirm the area as “all clear”. Natasha salutes. He’ll monitor any activity outside while she gets what she needs.

She opens the door.

The corridor is unadorned. It spans fifteen feet, and ends in another door. Sloping just a little, the bunker must be fully underground. She closes the outer door behind her, cutting off the slowly brewing storm outside. A few stray snowflakes fly in around her before sinking to the floor. Natasha walks cautiously, but there are no traps, nothing is triggered by her entrance. It sets her on edge. Impractical to rely solely on the guards outside and the secrecy of this location. But Hydra’s resources are spread thin. She doesn’t pause as she reaches for the doorknob. It turns with a click. Feels too easy.

The inside is warm. The lights are dim, the fixtures outdated. There’s a fire in one corner, beside a worn bed. There’s a kitchen area with a stove and a sink. A small fridge. A table, with two chairs, though the room houses a single occupant.

“Ah,” the old woman says. “I have lost a bet.”

Her posture is sturdy, and while her bones must be frail and delicate, she doesn’t favor them as she stands. It’s a graceful, fluid movement. There are echoes of training in the way she moves, as if every action is by design. The woman doesn’t have a cane, doesn’t seem to need one, and Natasha isn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t this. There is nothing about this that should be so jarring, but Natasha feels something. There is a pull at the back of her mind, something she doesn’t remember.

“What bet?” Natasha asks the most obvious question, because she doesn’t know what to ask anymore.

The old woman smiles, but she doesn’t make it reach her voice.

“I thought you would give up. I shouldn’t have bet against you. You never do what you’re told. Sit with me.”

Natasha doesn’t move.

“You know me.”

The old woman doesn’t blink.

“You came here to find out.”

Natasha switches to Russian, responding in kind. “You are the Bolshoi, correct?”

The creases around the woman’s eyes grow deep for a moment.

“That is the name I have now.” She licks her lips. “I asked you to sit with me. You are very rude.”

Natasha is glowering on the inside, but she sits with as much grace as the old woman used to stand, sitting opposite her empty seat. Extraction would be simpler. Less time spent in an hostile location the better. James is outside waiting. But that snag in her memory, it’s comforted by the motion. They have been here before. Not in this place, but this formation. Just as Natasha feels the absence of it, the old woman puts a pot of tea between them. The smell is- it’s exactly the same. As _what_?

“Ah сыночек you do know.” She sits across from Natasha. “You don’t remember, but you know.”

Natasha watches her serve the tea, the steam creeping upwards until it vanishes just before it reaches her eyes.

“I was told my chapter is in the Bolshoi.” She swallows against the remembered taste of dirt on the tip of her tongue. “You know me. Tell me where I began.”

The woman’s crooked smile appears again, and this time Natasha can sense an emotion behind it. Bitterness maybe, something just short of mirth.

“Oh little spider. Be careful what you ask for. I might just tell you.”

Natasha braces for an attack, but nothing comes.

“Tell me.”

The old woman leans back, warming her fingers on her cup of tea. Natasha won’t drink until she does. “You should ask me why I am the one chosen for this part of the story.” She watches Natasha. Her eyes might be hazel, but they look more like steel. “I was like you. It matters, to know.”

Natasha crosses her arms.

“I could drag you out of here, and make you tell me everything. Not just the things you want me to know.”

The woman takes a sip of tea.

“I am not frail like the Moranbong chapter. I have said, I was like you. Before there was anyone like you. After I was tossed out a window to save me from the SS. I am old, but my training remains. If you think I will tell you anything I do not want you to know, then you do not know yourself at all.”

Torture no longer an option. Pain tactics will not be successful. This is a different kind of game, with an opponent that is well-versed in counterintelligence. Double-speak is a language Natasha knows well. But there’s not enough time for a game this complex, not when they’re underground, an easy target. Would it be worth it for them to try and capture Natasha alive, or would losing this chapter be easier, knowing that the Black Widow would die with her?

“I can see you thinking, сыночек. They will not come for you, not like that. They already have you.”

Hardly. But arguing will not be a useful tactic right now. It’s enough to know that this woman thinks she is safe. Not expendable.

“We have time then.”

The woman takes another sip of tea. Swallows.

“We do.” She puts her cup down. “My first name is not important. I was named Yelena Belova when I was a combatant. You would say ‘in the field’. I was among the first to be trained by Leviathan. You know them.”

Natasha nods.

“They were a Russian spy organization. Before the KGB. Before the Russians were infiltrated by Hydra. Before-”

The woman, Belova, waves her hand.

“Hydra has many heads, ready to rise up when needed. It has always been this way. While Hydra’s scientists were joining the Americans, the Russians were creating their own weapons. We performed very well. I was sent to New York. My mission failed, but our goals were achieved.”

New York. Natasha can work with that. Leviathan was active after World War II, so it would have been in the late 40s or early 50s. There are a few incidents she is aware of during that time. The most likely is the explosion at the SSR office. The documents on the attack were brief, the trail inconclusive. But one Doctor Fennhoff was taken into custody. He would have been-

“Hydra was still getting a foothold in the United States. And the Cold War was already in motion. Why would they seek out an alliance with Leviathan?”

“Because they thought we would win.” Belova pours herself another cup of tea. “They planned to overtake the United States government from the inside. After Stalin’s death, they chose to support Eisenhower instead. But for several years, we were allies.”

Natasha is still listening for planes flying overhead, for sniper fire to alert her to an attack, but there is nothing. The interrogation is not going fast enough. Hydra had access to all of the переписывать technology from the beginning. It explains what they’re doing now, but that’s not what matters. Natasha tries not to grimace. It’s not what she came here for either.

“And I was born in 1984, less than a decade before the Cold War ended. I was obsolete by the time I was fully trained.” But that’s not quite right, was it? Because there were missions, and the work was never done. The task was to endure, and the pain was never far behind. “They found another purpose for me.” She offers, but Belova is smiling.

“Of course they did. That is why you are still alive.”

Natasha lets out a breath.

“But what about before?” She forces her voice to be stable. This is a mission for information. “I am not a cyborg, or a machine. I am human. This means someone must have made me. Yet there is no record of who I was.”

Belova’s eyes flash.

“I am the record.”

Natasha steels herself.

“Then tell me.”

The woman takes another sip of tea, her fingers soft against the china. It’s not fine, but Natasha knows that with the right application of pressure it would shatter in her hands. She looks down at her own cup. It’s gone cold.

“You should drink it, сыночек. You waited last time too. The flavor will remind you.”

Natasha glares because she can’t help it.

“The last time has been written over. You must know that.”

“Then taste it,” Belova insists.

Natasha scans the cup once more for any sign of poison, knowing that there would be nothing to alert her. Habit to check. She drinks, only enough to fill her mouth, coat her tongue in flavor. The tea tastes bitter and dry. It’s dark, and reminds her of burnt sugar, like caramel left too long on the stove. She tasted that once, when she was undercover, and the memory is overpowering, but there is another one. One from before. One where she sat at a table across from this woman. Her feet didn’t reach the floor, and the light was different, and her skin feels coated in dirt.

“You did not know at the time, but the Soldier was there too. You and I, we sat at a table, and you told me what you had done wrong.”

Natasha swallows. There’s something, she’s not sure what, but something true about what Belova is saying. She can feel it in some part of her body, and she wants to close her eyes and examine it but the dark is too much. The interrogation. She must keep pushing instead. It can all be examined later.

“You know him too, then?”

“Of course I do.” Her hands are stable, they don’t move when she speaks. “He is a part of the Bolshoi too, though his chapter is brief. Only so much time until he was taken to America for good. When I returned from my mission, that is when I met him.”

Natasha swallows.

“You trained beside him?”

“Ha! Training. No. They wanted to replicate us. He has a serum, it makes him valuable. All of the others had been failures. Administering it was not a safe procedure. So they wanted to investigate the genetic component. And I,” she pauses. “I was the one that had survived the training. The best.”

Natasha swallows, trying to rinse the taste from her mouth. She needs to be clearer.

“Replicate.”

“It was business.” She shrugs. “He made the same face. We were told it would be a story of great romance, the spies who crossed an ocean to be together. Like _Casablanca_. Bah. Some romance. He apologized  and told me it would probably be easier if I did not enjoy myself. I told him that would not be a problem. He followed orders, as did I."

Natasha feels impatience crawling underneath her skin. She forces herself to maintain control. Willpower. She will not get the information she needs if she is not calm. No one has spoken to this woman in a long time; she is lonely. Natasha can use that. No physical contact- Belova will see through that tactic and it will have the opposite of the desired effect. Listening is the appropriate move.

“So you knew him. In what, nineteen-fifty…”

“Nineteen-fifty-two. We did what was necessary, and he never saw me again. I think he did not want to look at me. And then I was wiped from his memory. But oh, he always wanted Alexei. They tried, but he made it impossible for them to erase our boy.”

Natasha doesn’t understand why Belova keeps leaving spaces. This is not a conversation. Natasha is the one that has blanks that need to be filled; she can give nothing to this conversation. There is no point in doing a cross-interrogation. The Bolshoi’s information is exclusive, it is not stored anywhere else. So there is no purpose in checking to see what Natasha already knows. And this is all ancient history by now away. None of it matters.

“The documents that exist say Alexei was betrothed to me. Were they going to do the same thing with us as they did with you?” Natasha watches Belova for a sign that the words have hurt her, but there is nothing. If there was any lasting damage from the encounter, the heartbreak has been trained out of her. Effective soldiers don’t weep after all. Belova waits for a moment before continuing.

“That is a story that was told. Alexei was born in 1953. He was one of the Orphans- you know this. Leviathan was going to make an army. Soldiers like me, we are useful yes, but we have limitations. They needed something more durable.”

Natasha nods.

“I was told as much by Nico Constantin.”

Belova shakes her head.

“Someone should have put that dog down a long time ago.” She sighs. “Why do you ask me for this? Do you even know?”

Natasha grinds her teeth together.

“Does it matter?”

“Oh,” Belova pours more tea. “There is no need to dissemble. We both know that it does.”

“Fine.” Natasha drains her teacup in one gulp, forcing her mind to remain firmly in the present. “I want to know who I was. Who I would have been. I was told that the answers were in the Bolshoi.” There’s an engine in the distance. Heavy machinery. Not a tank, something subtler. Far away- they have about fifteen minutes before escape will be impossible. “And now we are running out of time.”

Belova leans back.

“Very well. In nineteen eighty-six, Alexei was given a mission. It was a trick. Would he follow orders, and extract the information he had been sent for unnoticed? The destruction of the plant was necessary, but it was not what he had been ordered to do. You know the choice he made.”

Natasha doesn’t hide her scowl.

“What does a boy in Chernobyl have to do with-”

“ _You_ asked!” Belova snarls. “Beggars cannot be choosers, сыночек, you wish to know? Then you will let me speak.” She waits, seething, daring Natasha to interrupt her. The impulse has to be ignored. Natasha knows her time is short, but this is all part of the game. The woman is going to see how much Natasha is willing to risk to get the answers she came here for.

“He was a failure,” Natasha finishes. “He was terminated because of his failure.”

Belova smiles.

“Alexei was not a _failure_ , no. He was the only success. He did what needed to be done, when none of the others could even see past their commands. He did the necessary thing, for the good of all. Some might call that selfless, knowing as he did that he would be punished for it. This is why he was chosen to live.”

Natasha wants to argue, because no. She’s seen the records. She knows that Alexei was killed in 1986.

“You have been told a different story. Even Constantin believed that he was the only one left. He did not understand. You only think of the present, because to remember the past is to rebel. To think of the future is a luxury. But it was never the intention to just build an army. We needed leaders.”

The engine is closer. Ten minutes.

“Of course, for his disobedience, he was put in the hole.”

Natasha stiffens. She knows that word.

“Ah, you remember the hole. You understand why this was done. Cleverness yes, but it must be tempered with discipline always. And out of the hole came someone new.” Belova grins, and it comes off feral. “He sat across from me, and waited too long before he drank his tea. And he told me his mistake.”

Natasha reviews the past ten minutes of conversation. сыночек.

"You were a bad little child, when your name was Alexei. Nothing they did would stop your crying."

Natasha tries, but she doesn't remember this time.

"I didn't see much of you, but I heard. Whispers. He used to bring them to me. He never said, not out loud, but he blinked when he was looking at me, and we had a code."

Natasha thinks she could remember, if she knew the rooms, if she knew how to move the way Alexei moved.

“It was .-, that was you. Alexei. He would tell me that he saw you, on his way to the outside. Or that he heard you screaming and begged them to stop. I think they used you, to make him dance the way they want. I don't remember. I did not have the will to tell him I didn't care."

His body was smaller, of course, but if she could see a video, she might be able to replicate it.

"Later, he stopped telling me things about you. He was gone, off to America and he was our enemy for a time. One of the others, one of my sisters, she is the one who told me. You had to be put in one of the holes. I think, for some months, you were in there."

Dark and thin and raw and alone.

"I lost track of you for a little while, after that. I had work to do. And when they discovered they could not replicate you, that you were my only chance, they sent me somewhere else."

There is information there, and Natasha wants to ask. What missions? What were the code names? Who did you kill? But instead, she asks a question that is not relevant, and it is not part of the plan.

"How did you find me again?"

The woman shrugs, her wiry shoulders, barely brushing against the thick fabric of her robe.

"I saw you when they took you out. I think they had forgotten that you came from me. Your fingernails were all bloody and dark. And you couldn't speak. You had screamed yourself raw. “

Natasha grinds her teeth.

“You said it was important, that you are the Bolshoi. This is why you were chosen.” She feels cold. It’s only the fire dying down. The thick stone of the bunker will be chilling the air.

“It is a good plan. An operation built upon decades of work. Not the perfect soldier, but the perfect leader. Even your defection was useful. You learned at the heel of Hydra’s best.” Belova shakes her head. “At first, they must have wanted another one of us. But you were just a silly rebel.”

At that, Natasha is angry.

“Why,” it comes out as a whisper. But then she stands, and the force of it throws her chair back against the floor. And she doesn’t understand why. Anger is not useful right now. Not when she needs to- but she doesn’t care. The anger has burned any other need out of her. All that is left is rage, tearing through her lungs and burning behind her eyes sockets, seething and flaring and turning every other concern to ash. It does not matter that there are only a few minutes left. Or that James is outside waiting. Nothing matters. Nothing.

“Why did you let this happen?!” She glares at Belova, and it feels so good to unleash it. “I was yours!”

Belova shakes her head.

“You are many things. But you were never mine. Not even our lives are our own, you know this.”

Natasha shakes her head, trying to dislodge the feeling, but she can’t.

“I am your blood.” Her hands are fists and she can’t release them. “Even when everything is erased, your blood remains. You should have-”

“What should I have done?”

“You should have fought for me!” Natasha feels herself gone. There is nothing about this that is analytic or useful and that is everything that she is. “You should have.” She chokes. “You should have loved me.”

Belova takes a sip of tea.

“And what would that have gotten us? A bullet in the head, Natalia. You know as well as I that love is for children. And you were never one of those.” She smirks. “You know why this was chosen for you? You understood better, the first time. Covered in dirt, they dragged you here. You were still overwhelmed by the light. Reeking. A woman would be more useful. Better equipped to go places that others could not. They said you would be calmer like this. But they have always been wrong about you. Foolish and reckless is all you are. You should have been like us. But you’re not.”

Natasha takes a step backwards, and her ankle hits the chair. Five minutes. She doesn’t feel like she can breathe.

"You know why they want you so badly?” Belova stands. “It's not because you were their best soldier, no. You were by far the worst. Always problems, with you. They think you're some kind of genius. Me, I think you're selfish. But they don't ask me. While all the little girls were reciting Snow White, you were daydreaming about what happened after the prince rode away with her. Always asking questions. Always disobeying. They think you have, what do the Americans call it, _intuition_. Creativity. They think you make a terrible soldier. But they believe you would create the most beautiful new world order."

“Then I’ll refuse.” Natasha feels the anger wash through her, and she stops fighting it. “I won’t accept it. What will they do then?” A harsh laugh floats up through her without her permission. “After all the great struggles, and all the pain? What is the point?”

“The plan will continue on schedule.”

“There’s no point. Hydra can keep fighting, but if they go on like this there will be nothing but orphans left.”

Belova grins.

“As you said it. You will have an army of Orphans to lead.”

Natasha blinks.

The rewriting program. _Prevent duplication by destroying the original model_ , he said. _The reproduction of the Orphan Project will be a great service to Hydra_. He told her but he couldn’t _tell_ her. The next step for the Insight program. Rewrite all enemies of Hydra using the Winter Soldier as a blueprint. Leaving Natasha as their leader.

The only person equipped to use them and take them down if necessary.

She reaches around the table and grabs Belova. The movement disrupts the teapot, which wobbles and falls to the floor. It shatters. Tea trickles across the floor, sloping downwards.

“You’re coming with me.”

The old woman doesn’t struggle.

“Am I? And what use will I be to you?”

Natasha has a gun in her other hand. “Shut up.” She’ll drag her on foot across Russia if she has to. Belova is laughing.

“Whoever sent you here to find me did it because you were supposed to join me. You’re twenty years too late, but you were always meant to be one of mine.”

Natasha reaches the door, and uses it to shield the old woman. But there’s no fire, there’s nothing. It won’t last. Natasha takes the lead, towards sunlight, too bright after the dimness of the bunker. Reflecting off the snow. There’s a bloody mess waiting for them. James will be watching. He hasn’t fired his warning shot yet. That’s good, they can still escape. They have time. She can still warn him. She knows what they want from him now.

She turns to Belova.

“You’re going to do exactly as I say. I don’t care how you were trained, you’ve been out of the game for a long time. So you’re following my orders. That’s what you’re going to do if you want to live.”

Belova croaks.

“сыночек, what makes you think I want to live?”

That was the warning shot. Natasha hears it before she feels it. Belova crumbles. The bullet tore through her intestines. Natasha doesn't try to catch her, because she knows a kill shot when she sees one and she was been trained not to waste energy on lost causes. She holds a hand up to her own abdomen, bleeding and sore. The bullet hole is in the same spot as the first time she’d fought against the Winter Soldier. She can hear the echo of the surgeon, joking with a nurse just seconds before Natasha went under. _Bye-bye bikinis_. And Natasha swears. Because of course he picked this injury. With perfect accuracy, he took away her only chance to remember this moment in her flesh, because this memory is about to be obliterated, she's sure. And she won't even have a scar to remind her.

“You bastard,” she's losing too much blood. The engine is too close. She can try to run, and leave a bloody trail behind her. “You fucking bastard.” She can already feel her body failing her. She can't keep her grip on the gun for much longer. “I hate you. I hate you.”

The engine is close, and she can hear footsteps. She raises her gun and fires. Again and again and again. They go down, but there are so many, and she has no extraction plan. She has nothing.

“You bastard, I hate you!” She doesn't care that he can't hear her. She keeps firing, knowing that they won't kill her. She doesn't even have that. When one of them sneaks up behind her, she swings around, trying to grapple with him. But he's large and he knows how to use his size against her, and if she wasn't been bleeding and gasping for breath she might be able to take him. But there's a dart in her thigh she hadn’t been able to deflect, and they are going to take her down.

And she knows what's coming next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Sorry?


	31. Shock

Her eyes are open. She has been here before. 

She can’t see the room, but she can feel it beneath her. That sense of familiarity that doesn’t need evidence. There’s an echo, like someone asking her if she is ready to comply. And she knows the answer should be  _yes_. And she knows the answer should be _no_. And she knows that the owner of the voice is wearing Pierce’s face. 

Her body feels like it’s been covered in a sheet of lead. Comfort and home and safety. Everything feels heavy. Her face is cradled in metal. It tastes… it tastes like blood. Such a brave soldier. She breathes, and it’s restricted. Dizzying. She’s been fighting for so long, and now she is finally coming home. She’s being rewritten, she knows that’s what this is. Replacing her memories of feeling betrayed with the sensation of being nurtured and cared for. From a distance, yes, always loved you. He held you once, you remember that. She remembers the look on his face when he told her, heartbroken. Because he’d tried to save her, hadn’t he? But his programming had overruled the need to kill her. 

This was his mission all along. 

This is why she had to know her own history before she could stop him.

Because it was never their plan for her to stop him. 

And it feels so soothing, the whurr of the machine. It’s so gentle, the way it tears through her. If she bites down she can feel it. Sturdy like a curb bit for a horse. Her mother had warned her, the bitch _warned_ her. “Whoever sent you here to find me did it because you’re supposed to join me.” Of course. That was the plan all along. It doesn’t hurt to give in, to cede control to the machine. She could let it tell her that she felt loved, not angry. That the pain ended. 

Deciding not to go along with it is what hurts. 

The straps around her wrists are sturdy. Dislocated shoulder complicates things. She breaks her thumbs to slide her hands out. She gets the left one first, and she doesn’t have time for the bones to heal. The light in her eyes has to go next, and her pupils don’t dilate fast enough. There must be some drug in her system. It means that her light-saturated eyes are plunged into darkness. It doesn’t matter. She can feel the space in her mouth where the machine has been drilled into her jaw. She needs to remove the attachment to her brain. Choking, she grasps it. Yanking. It hurts. Of course it hurts. It all fucking hurts. The machine comes out, and the bad tooth she’s been ignoring goes with it. One problem solved at least. 

Natasha blinks a few more times. Spits out the blood pooling in the back of her mouth. Her limbs are beginning to feel like her own again. 

And the Soldier is watching her. 

She doesn’t know what else to call him. His posture is… confusing. He is telegraphing 'sad'. But his mission was a success. She received the message; she is supposed to lead Hydra. And she has been so distracted by this mission that she has allowed the sequel to Insight to carry on. That should have been the primary target from the beginning. But with the Soldier goading her on, she allowed it to be managed by others. She shouldn’t have trusted anyone else with it- stupid. 

So why is the Soldier sad.

“You could make yourself useful,” she gestures at the straps around her ankles. They’re complex. Her thumbs need to heal a little more before she can move.

The Soldier blinks at her. 

“Natasha, I _can’t_.”

She glowers.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

His lips tremble.

“I wanted to stop it.”

Natasha tosses the bit onto the floor, spit and blood splattering off the clean white tiles.

“I managed fine without you.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I mean.” He grinds his teeth. “I tried to warn you. I couldn’t stop you from looking but I.” He rolls his lips between his teeth. “All I could do was watch. Even here.” He stares at his hands. “I couldn’t release you. But I.” He’s fighting with himself, she remembers what that looks like. “I won’t stop you from trying to escape.”

Someone changed her into a hospital gown. Natasha wishes she still had it in her to be repulsed by things like that. 

“Why not?”

He stares at her, wide blue eyes so clear. 

“Because you promised you would kill me.”

Natasha flexes her hand. The bones are still grinding together. In a minute she’s going to give up on them entirely. 

“Oh, is that what I promised?”

“Natasha, _please_ ,” he begs. His hair is wet where it frames his face. “You know what I am. I was leading the training program, I was the one that orchestrated everything. Some days I don’t even know how deep I am in it. All I know is that I need to be stopped. No one else can do it, no one else _will_. But I betrayed you." He snarls. "I left you behind, I let them make me _forget_ you. And then I dragged you around the world searching for answers that were inside me all along.” He’s taking deep breaths, and they’re not calming him down at all. “What they’re planning. I can’t stop it. I _want_ to. But I can’t. I. Natasha.” He stares at her. “You have to do this for me.”

The bullet wound in her abdomen is almost healed. She’s been unconscious for a day then. The internal muscles will still be sore, and the more she moves the more likely it is that she’ll open the damn thing up again, but at least the bleeding will be minimal. She can’t afford to lose more blood, she’s lightheaded enough.

“Steve could-”

“You know Steve wouldn’t!” The Soldier is standing, pacing, looks like an animal. He’s dripping, why is he dripping? “I would have killed him and he would have let me!”

“But you didn’t kill him, did you James?” The name makes him pause. “You stopped.”

He shakes his head.

“What happened in DC won’t happen again.” He sighs. “You’ve felt it before, you know what it’s like. The programming is too strong and it will take over. I can feel myself slipping.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m almost gone. Steve won’t see that until it’s too late, but I feel it already. Bucky Barnes is a ghost. The Winter Soldier is the one that’s real.” He swallows. “Natasha.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“You do this, your ledger can be wiped clean.” He’s covered in ice, slowly melting, that’s what it is. “But you have to take me down when you do it. Or I’ll come back. Or I’ll kill you, I don’t know anymore.” He chokes. 

Her limbs will have to be good enough. The injury in her abdomen will be an obstacle, but she will have to accept the pain. Natasha reaches down and removes the straps around her ankles. It hurts. The Soldier is still staring at her. 

“Please. Let me have this one selfish thing. Before my self is gone entirely.”

That’s when the alarm goes off. 

She glares at him.

“Did you-”

He shakes his head.

“I knew I wouldn’t have much time.”

No weapons. Wherever she is, it’s going to be well-guarded. And the Soldier is just sitting there. He won’t help, but he won’t stop her either. And there’s no more time. 

“Stay out of my way,” she growls. 

“Natasha-”

“Or don’t.” She cracks her neck. “Get out in front of me and we’ll see if you were right to trust me with this.” She cuts him off again. “Because right now, I really want to kill you.”

No use. He’s playing them, even now. If he dies today, they’ll think she knows about Insight. If he lives- if she lets him live- they won’t know that she knows everything. She licks the blood off her lips. She is determined to remember every second of this. She clings to the anger that’s still underneath the surface, banishing all thoughts of love and comfort. Love is for children, and it is a trick. She can hear them coming. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Save it.” She slams the door on her way out. 

There are already three guards. She smacks the first one into the wall, and her shoulder snaps back into place. The man chokes and she grabs his throat, fingers tearing through his skin. She uses the spray of blood to distract the other two. They’ll be repulsed and disoriented by the splatter in their eyes. Natasha leaves the gurgling man to slump on the floor. She trips the clumsier guard and grabs the other’s gun, slinging it over her shoulder so that he fires on the other three coming around the corner. She doesn’t need to see them to know they’ve all been hit. Their shouts echo in the barren hall. 

She slams her forehead into the man’s nose, breaking it. Uses the gun to break his jaw. She shoots the clumsy one, still recovering, useless. Fires the last of the bullets at the seven new ones up ahead. Not aiming for kill shots, just throwing a messy spray of bullets in their direction. No finesse. No grace. But injured is injured and dead is dead. 

Another one comes up behind her- this one was trained better. Not good enough. She grabs the gun and aims it at the ceiling, and he doesn’t have the leverage to overpower her. He tries to grab her neck, so she loops her ankle around his and trips him, uses his weight to pull them both down. She lands on top of him, bends her leg up to snap his knee. He screams. She slams his head into the floor before the next guard can pull her off him. 

She doesn’t bother killing him, she merely yanks the arm that’s holding her out of its socket. She uses it as a club for the next one. Blunt, heavy, bloody. She snaps it in half over her knee, using the broken bone to stab and slash at the survivors. A bullet grazes her leg, and she spins, flinging the ruined arm at whoever is shooting at her. She can hear another idiot behind her, and backs up fast, slamming him into the wall. She stomps on his feet, breaking several bones in each. Natasha thinks for long enough to find his gun in her hand. He starts to fall over and she flings him in front of her, using his body as a shield for the next spray of bullets. Time to run. 

Natasha bolts down the hall, over the bodies, into the first open door. It’s an empty storage room. Just a few unused shelves and a forgotten box of pencils. She can hear them coming. No point in barricading the door. She glances out the window. Probably not a fatal fall. Natasha kicks the shelf out the window, shattering the glass. They’re coming behind her. The door opens and she jumps. 

A spray of glass meets her as the window underneath breaks. 

The Soldier catches her mid air, twisting so that he’ll take the impact of the fall. 

She leaps off him. His eyes are wide. 

“Go,” he pleads. “Go.”

She backs away. She has a gun.

“I won’t follow you, but only if you leave now.” He knows she has a gun.

“I hate you.” Anger isn’t useful here. She has a gun, she doesn’t need words.

He nods.

She takes aim. Shoots.

The bullet ricochets off the metal arm. She missed. 

Natasha turns around and runs. 

* * *

She steals a car and drives until she sees a parking lot. Abandons the first car, steals a license plate from a minivan and steals an all-terrain. There’s a mostly full bottle of water in the cup holder. She downs half of it, using the rest to rinse her bloody lips. Snaps her head around to shake off the excess. It slaps against the windowpane. She drives until it’s late enough to break into a mall and steal some clothes and food. Avoiding cameras, like she was trained to do. She takes what she needs. It’s dishonest, but efficient. Grabs a few burner phones too. Rinses her face and hands in the bathroom on the way out. 

Next is a phone call. She uses the GPS to figure out where she is. Nowhere special, Maryland. “Old man, it’s time to get the band back together.” Watching her six in the reflection, but there’s no one there. “I’ll meet you in my old lady’s chicken coop.” He’ll know what it means. 

Take apart the phone, destroy the components. Dispose of them in separate receptacles. Her fingers do all the necessary work. She has to get a message to Bruce. It can wait until she’s stationary. A phone call in the middle of the night from a strange number will be too noticeable. 

The sun is creeping up overhead by the time she pulls into the lot. Natasha scrounges through the seat cushions until she finds enough change for the pay phone outside. It’s easily traceable, but even Hydra isn’t going to be ballsy enough to attack her at a gun range favored by CIA operatives. Not when they’re planning to launch their master plan into the sky in less than twenty-four hours. 

“Bruce, it’s Clint, please tell me you’re ready.”

“Well Clint, it’s five in the morning, of course I’m ready.”

“That had better be sarcasm.”

She can hear him sitting up in bed, groaning.

“Everything okay?”

She chews on her lip.

“I need a favor. It’s a lower priority. I just.” She checks her reflection in the glass, staring at the empty road behind her. “I need to confirm some intel. It’s actually in your wheelhouse this time.”

“Nuclear physics?”

“Not quite.”

“Well that’s a surprise.” She can discern that he’s not unhappy with her, despite his sarcasm, because he stays on the line. “What do you need?”

“There’s a blood sample that was uploaded to Stark’s database a few weeks ago. It would have been done under my name. I need you to check for something. I don’t have a lab handy, but there should be another sample in the old S.H.I.E.L.D. files, Operative three two four alpha six nine-”

“Give me a sec to wake up Clint.” Another sigh. Fumbling for a pen. “Give me that again?”

“I’ll text you the details. Just,” she watches as a familiar car pulls into the lot.

“What was that Clint?”

“I need you to do a paternity test.” She hangs up the phone. Smiling. “Sharon!”

The other woman doesn’t look surprised to see her. 

“Thought you might be dead Natasha.”

She shrugs. “Not so lucky. You here to practice?”

Sharon hoists a bag over her shoulder.

“Just blowing off steam.”

“Good,” Natasha follows her. “You can spot me. All I have is pocket change.”

Sharon examines her.

“You forgot to wash behind your ears.”

Natasha scratches at the dried blood there. 

“Not mine. It’s been a long night.”

“You gonna tell me about it?”

Natasha snorts.

“I think we’d both rather shoot things.”

The range is quiet this early in the morning. The lone cashier recognizes Sharon as she pays for them both. He probably recognizes Natasha too, but there’s not much she can do about that. She pickpockets Sharon’s phone to send Bruce the information he needs, then deletes the message. Returns the phone before the other woman notices. 

Sharon sets her bag down and checks her guns. Everything is in order. She hands one to Natasha. It feels right, but she goes through her own checks anyway. Take it apart. Put it back together. Methodical. Her fingers smell familiar when she’s done. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Natasha looks down. There’s a dark stain spreading across her stolen shirt. Shouldn’t have picked white. Something must have strained the injury in her abdomen.

“It’s nothing.”

Sharon rolls her eyes.

“The targets are lined up. Whenever you’re ready.”

Natasha stands up. Puts on the goggles and hearing protectors. She hates the way they feel. But Sharon will complain if she doesn’t wear them. The first shot feels good. Sharon echoes hers. They’ve both hit their targets. Sharon hits a button and they move further away, points to her chest. Aim for the heart this time. 

They fire. Natasha’s aim is perfect. Sharon’s is close, but it’s a millimeter off and they both know it. Natasha grimaces as the targets move further back. She taps on her shoulder. Aim there. Not a kill shot, but they’re both used to aiming at the bright red circles in the targets. This will be more difficult, if only because it’s not part of their memories. They shoot. Almost synchronized, but not quite. Natasha might as well have fired a perfect shot. The rotator cuff of Natasha’s target is a gaping hole in the breeze, while Sharon would have torn through muscle, avoiding bones. As far as nonlethal injuries go, Natasha’s target would be more efficiently incapacitated. She grimaces.

“Again.”

Sharon is looking at her; she can feel it but she doesn’t turn around. 

“You okay Nat?”

The corner of her lip twists.

“I’m always fine.” She talks over Sharon’s follow-up question. “Just set them up.”

Sharon shakes her head, but does as she’s told. Two fresh targets. Natasha fires a second early. Early enough that even someone unenhanced would notice. Sharon doesn’t say anything. Their targets this time are perfectly matched. 

Natasha doesn’t take her eyes off them.

“Again.”

“Natasha-”

“Set them up.”

“-what’s going on with you?”

Sharon doesn’t budge. Natasha swallows.

“Stop moving the targets.”

“What?”

Natasha faces her. No sign of deception, but of course Sharon has been trained not to give away anything like that. And in this state- Sharon has been trained not to give anything away. Natasha starts cataloguing all of the tells she knows about. Sharon will sometimes try to overcompensate with kindness. It’s a useful tactic. Make the target feel guilty for suspecting. Natasha is immune, she should be-

“Natasha what are you talking about?”

She rolls her eyes.

“You’re moving them to make me look better. It’s not necessary.”

Sharon’s eyes are wide. Brown.

“Natasha, I’m not moving them.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. Takes aim.

“Just set them up again.”

Sharon grunts. She’ll concede eventually, but-

“I’ll take this from here Agent.”

Natasha didn’t hear him approaching. He has a distinct pattern. A well-disguised limp from an old injury. She’s sure it happened some time in South America, but was not able to pinpoint when and how. He should have been audible on the hard concrete path. Stupid. Hearing protectors are still on. Natasha tears them off with the goggles, depositing them with excruciating calm on the table in front of her. 

“Director.” Sharon is already compensating for her surprise. 

“Not anymore.” Natasha can hear his smile. “Just Nick is fine for now.”

Sharon will be smiling too.

“Of course sir. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

Fury chuckles.

“Might be a while. You know I love a grand entrance.”

Sharon leaves. Natasha takes a breath.

“You’re a funny one Romanoff.” He stands beside her. She can see him out of the corner of her eye. Polite, but unnecessary. “Dropping in on your ex out of the blue like this. Most people take the hint after they get dumped.”

“Just needed a good cover to meet with you.”

He nods.

“Sure.” She can feel the way he’s looking at her. “You could have called a little sooner.”

Natasha grins.

“You would have done the same thing.”

She knows immediately this was the incorrect response. He looks wounded; he assumed that she is angry with him. She’s not. 

“You know why I didn’t call Nick.”

He sighs.

“No. I don’t think I do.”

They stand in silence. He’s waiting for her to talk. She will. This isn’t an interrogation, but she isn’t sure what to say. How to fill up this space. There’s no report to give because he’s not her handler, or even her employer. She hasn’t been following anyone’s orders and now. 

“The secondary helicarriers are going up. Banner and Hill have the tech to stop them.” She swallows. “Hydra is planning on using the Soldier’s memories. They seem to think if they wipe everyone on the Insight list and replace them with him, they’ll be able to build an army.”

Fury nods.

“Sounds like a solid plan. What do you think?”

“We have the tools to stop it.”

“That’s not what I asked. Do you think it would work?”

She shrugs. There’s a piece of old chewing gum on the ground in between her feet. Scuffed and dirty. It would have started out pink, she thinks, but it’s black and hardened by now. Covered with dirt. She probably stepped on it herself when she was shooting. 

“Sharon was coddling me.” She focuses on the targets. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

Fury looks at them too.

“You really think she was moving them for you?”

Natasha shrugs. She remembers an older woman, with a severe expression and deep lines in her forehead. Not smile lines. She had spoken to Natasha in Russian, explaining the components of the guns and then forcing Natasha to repeat them over and over and over again, until it was like breathing to recite them. Feeling so powerful when she held one in her hands. When she fired it. When she hit the bright red X in the center of her target’s chest. Holding out her bare palms to be slapped, because she allowed herself to feel confident. Don’t be proud. Smack! How will you learn if we are always helping you? Smack! Didn’t she know they’d been moving the targets for her? Didn’t she know they were always in control? 

Smack.

She wonders if she was still a boy when it happened. The guns were old. It’s possible. 

“The only other explanation is that I missed.” She stares at Fury. “I had a clear shot at the Winter Soldier. He wanted me to. And he’s still alive.” Her tone is insubordinate, but she can’t make the words come out any other way. 

“Natasha.” He shifts, putting his weight on his stronger foot. “I’ve known you for a while. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you miss. Wherever that bullet landed, I think it’s exactly where you wanted it to go.”

She grimaces.

“I was trying to take him. Use him as an asset. I thought I could override the conditioning he’s been given.” She swallows, and her mouth tastes like dust. “I knew he had an alternate mission. I knew he could be trying to recruit me.” She doesn’t wince. “I knew Pierce had trained him, too.”

Fury nods.

“Those files you released confirmed it. He had all of us fooled Natasha.”

She shakes her head.

“He wanted me for something. Told me I was special. He was training me for _this_.”

“For what?” Fury looks at her, finally. She can feel it behind the sunglasses. “Natasha.”

“Who do you think is supposed to lead the army?” She smirks. “Not a soldier. In Russia I was a rebel, but here I was a visionary. When Pierce handed me off to you, I thought it was over. That he didn’t want that for me anymore. But it was always a part of me, long before him. It was in my own blood.”

It takes Fury a second to respond. 

“You found out where you came from.”

She nods.

“Looks like it.”

“Hydra?”

“All along. What a surprise.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you think they can win?”

She scans him.

“Hill and Banner can stop the helicarriers.”

“Because of you, right? You’re the only one that’s been working to stop them. If they had you on their side, do you think they could do it?”

She feels her body adjusting, moving into readiness.

“They’d have a chance.”

His eyebrow twitches.

“Seems like you’re the deciding player here then.”

She feels the dividing wall at her back and the gun in her hand. She didn’t disarm, did she? She feels her teeth clenching. 

“What are you asking Nick.”

“I’m asking what you’re going to do about it, since it took you so long to ask your friends for help.”

She exhales.

“I’m not going to do anything.”

“Now, I don’t believe that for a second.”

She looks at him, but he’s not being playful. His tone is light, but it’s not a joke. He really doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t understand.

“There’s nothing wrong with my aim, Nick. I’ve been compromised.”

Placating. He’s being placating. 

“You were with him for a while. Trying to connect with him. If Rogers saw something in him while the guy was beating him to a pulp, you probably saw a lot more while you were traveling with him. We all get attached to our assets Natasha.”

“No.” She doesn’t understand how he can’t _see_ it, it feels like it’s written all over her body. “He _got_ to me.” Destroyed from the inside out. “The entire time I was playing him, I thought I was controlling him. But he had me. He used it all against me. Not just everything I knew, but everything that I am.” The words feel stiff but her body feels hot, like her skin is crawling. “I have to take myself out of the equation.”

Fury reaches for her.

“Natasha-“

“I can’t let him consume me.” She sets her jaw. “I’m his.”

He almost takes a step back, but he stops himself. Natasha can see the moment of confused revulsion before he starts putting pieces together, making assumptions, making her fit into something he can understand. 

“You’re sure?”

“Bruce is confirming it now. But I see no reason to lie. It would have been more beneficial to keep that intel from me, dangle it like a prize instead.” She doesn’t remember where she learned to miss the person she had been, where this will to _know_ who and what she was came from. It would be easier if it felt like a foreign idea, if this drive had been something implanted. If the envy she’d experienced when Pierce had gone home to his real family hadn’t been real. She wonders if this was an intentional result when he taught her again how to feel. 

“Natasha.”

She shakes her head. 

“I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

Fury is looking at her.

“I always think you are. I’m finding out lately I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.” Hr shakes his head. “I should have. Damn.” He sighs. “I should have done a lot of things differently.” He nods at her. “You sure you’re out for this one? We could use you.”

She nods.

“I don’t want to kill him.”

“So what is this, your resignation? From the Avengers? From everything?”

Her jaw stiffens.

“Well. It’s clear I’m no good for this line of work-”

“Bullshit.”

“You saw the files I leaked. You saw what I did.”

He cracks his neck when he moves.

“I saw what Pierce ordered you to do.”

“And you saw that I did it.”

“Natasha-”

“No!” She shifts away from him. “Don’t tell me… anything. I’m not.”

Fury doesn’t budge.

“What _do_ you want?”

She opens her lips, but it takes a second for the words to come.

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” It never has.

“You could join him.”

She glares at Fury.

“He doesn’t want that.”

“Does it matter?” Fury shifts again, giving his bad knee a break. “Hydra sure as hell isn’t letting him make the decisions, so it doesn’t matter what he wants. He can’t make it happen, and he can’t stop it either.”

“And what about you?” She glares out at the targets instead. “You telling me you’re switching sides? After everything Steve did?”

“No, of course not.”

“So what.” She feels her face moving and she tries to stop it. “You want to be on opposite sides and hope you don’t have to see me on the battlefield?”

“Stop it Natasha. What I want isn’t important either.”

“Of course it is-”

“NO!” He shouts it. The air feels empty in the silence that follows. “Natasha.” He eases back. “What do _you_ want?”

Only one person has ever asked and meant it.

Pierce asked, but he always wanted a very specific answer. And she gave it, over and over again. And when he handed her off to Fury. He asked her to join the Avengers, and there wasn’t really another option. _Do you want to join the Avengers Initiative?_ It’s not something you say no to when you’ve got a ledger full of crimes and nowhere else to go after your commanding officer decides he wants nothing to do with you.  _Tell me what you want_ , Rumlow’s gurgling voice. 

But what she wants is impossible. 

Her phone rings. She answers it, recognizing Bruce’s number. “Did you find a match?”

There’s noise behind him, the lab. Something is broken or on fire, judging from the clamor. Nothing to be concerned about, judging from his tone. Irritated but accustomed. 

“Yeah. It’s a match. But it says-”

“That it’s mine. Yep.”

He’s trying to work something out. He’ll get there. 

“Was this a secret? Should I burn all the evidence or something?”

“Don’t bother.” She takes one last look at the targets. “That’s _my_ secret Bruce. Even when I’m telling the truth, I’m always hiding something else.”

Natasha leaves the gun behind. It belongs to Sharon. Fury will make sure it will be returned to the right place. 

“I’ll see you later old man.”

What she wants is impossible. 

That’s never stopped her before. 


	32. Metastasis

The streets have been torn apart by tree roots and time. Natasha walks and she isn’t hiding. Her red hair will shine bright in the sun, she thinks. It’s growing back in uneven curls. There are no cameras to dodge, though she is sure she is being watched, and she does nothing to avoid it. Their meeting place is suitably symbolic. Because she is a pragmatist, she knows that this is logistically foolish, and irritatingly sentimental. If she were a poet she would describe this as the end of a very long dance.

Rumlow looks almost well. He is leaning against the doorframe of what was once an orphanage. The letters have faded but this place is familiar to her bones. The burns have permanently distorted his face but his lips still turn in a cocky approximation of a smile. He is amused, which does not surprise her. His body is enhanced, which is also not a surprise. Hydra kept him alive. His body would have needed modification if he was to continue being useful. The way he is standing it is clear that his muscles will not betray him. His skin _will_ ache. Possibly forever. But he will refuse to allow it to control him. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

“Romanoff.”

She shrugs. They’re both heavy with weapons.

“You’re early.”

His face cracks open in a full, feral grin.

“Thought I might give you a tour.”

Not necessary, but she knows it’s part of the game. Natasha follows him inside. It smells like decay. The plaster is crumbling in places, and the paint is peeling everywhere. Light filters in from the empty window frames. Dense green foliage is reaching inside, branches dragged down by leaves trying to reclaim the bones of the building. The stairs are covered by a thick layer of dust, and don’t look strong enough to hold their weight, but the nursery is upstairs. And the story must be finished there. Where it began, as it were. She withholds her snicker. There is always a beautiful woman, there is always a doomed love. Only the good ascent to heaven. Storytellers can be so predictable.

The bed frames are still arranged in neat little rows, though the smooth floor is carpeted in debris now. The white paint is chipped, giving way to rust. Rapidly abandoned. Toys are scattered, chairs upended. Natasha steps around a patch of moss, not wanting to disperse the absorbed radiation. She expected it to feel more like her memories than it does; truthfully it feels more like a forest that’s been disrupted. The leaves shudder every time the wind blows, and she knows bears and wolves are living very well nearby.

“Well?”

She crosses her arms. He’s standing in front of a wall coated in old propaganda. The model city- falling to pieces all around them.

“You were assigned to send me to her. When I came asking questions.”

Rumlow shrugs.

“You know how it is. There’s always an agenda.”

“And now?” He’s giving nothing away. Perhaps because there is nothing left to give. “You’re just awaiting orders?”

He looks ready. He looks _hungry_.

“If you’re ready to give them.”

She pauses. Because it is all part of the dance.

“We only have a few hours before our army is ready, and we’ve got a lot of work to do if we want Hydra to win.” She adopts the tone of command she’s heard before, the assumption that her words will be heard and obeyed. “Give me your report.”

* * *

**_Three hours ago._ **

Natasha stares at the reflection, her fingers gentle with the scissors as she snips through the stitches. Last time she was in Odessa, she received a duplicate injury.

Idly, she wonders if Pierce had meant for her to die in Odessa. He was the one pulling the Soldier’s strings by then. Somehow, she doubts it.

The last mission he’d hand picked for her had gone badly. She remembers the lead up to the mission, the protocols and instructions that were delivered by a nondescript agent she never saw again. Pierce had been ignoring her. No. Ignoring her would mean that she went to him and he did not speak to her or look at her, that her messages went unanswered. Pierce was repulsed by her. She had left the briefing determined, as she had been for months, to prove to him that she was _good_. That she would be a perfect agent. That it had not been a mistake to recruit her.

And that was when Clint found her. Furious, and she realized that she did not think his was a face that could hold fury before that moment. But his eyes were wide open and the muscles around them were so tight. His nose was drawn up in a sneer and his fingers twitched like he wished he was holding something more lethal than a bow and arrow. Something about him made her wait, like she was expecting all of this anger to be directed at her. Perhaps he knew what Pierce knew, and wanted to exact revenge instead of teaching her a lesson.

“Why didn’t you tell me!” He’d hissed. Backing her into a wall. She let him. Didn’t struggle, because it was like he was shielding her with his body, even though she could feel his terrible, awful _feelings_ radiating off him like heat.

“What should I have said?” She'd meant it like a real question but he hadn’t answered. Instead Clint glanced around and dragged her into an empty conference room. Inside, he was panting. He was uninjured, that was the first thing she looked for. Hadn’t been running either, his pace was enough to elevate his heart rate slightly, but not enough for breathlessness. Heightened emotional state.

“What Pierce has been doing- what he made you do.” Clint looked nauseated. “Natalia, you have to know it wasn’t good. Please tell me you know that.”

She’d glared at him.

“My name isn’t-”

“Christ.” He’d backed away, wiped his lips on the palm of his hand. “I’ll talk to Fury. Get you out of it somehow. If I’d known.” He grimaces. “I thought I was bringing you someplace safe, I need you to know that. I really thought that I.” He swallows. “I’m gonna fix this okay. Just give me some time. You can hate me forever if you need to but I swear I’m gonna do right by you.”

And that was the end of it. She knew that the conversation had been recorded. It was part of the documents she’d released in DC. Clint wouldn’t have been jaded enough yet to check for recording devices, but she had thought at the time that he knew they were there. She knows better now. Natasha takes one last swipe at the injury with an alcohol pad. The conversation had been jarring, and she’d buried that feeling so that she could complete her mission. She wouldn’t let Pierce see her rattled, because weakness was unacceptable. After her return, she found out that Clint had been sent to Osaka, and something had gone wrong. Not enough intel, insufficient backup. His team went down, and a terror cell was holding him. Hostages can provide leverage if used properly.

She’d been delivering her report when the thought occurred to her. There was nothing holding her down. She got up. Went to Pierce’s office.

“I want to be on the rescue team going after Barton.”

He put his pen down, staring at her.

“No.”

She didn’t want to move. After a moment, he’d continued.

“Your loyalties are still unclear. Sending you there would be too much of a risk. You understand.”

“Sir-”

“Agent Romanoff, you’re interrupting me.”

She grit her teeth and accepted the dismissal, placing her bug underneath the doorknob on her way out. After several calls, she knew that there was no planned extraction, that they had no intention of negotiating with terrorists. That Pierce was going to let Barton die. A casualty. But not someone who was going to be missed after all. One estranged brother and a few casual friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. were all he’d leave behind after all. An acceptable loss.

The plane ride is smooth underneath Natasha’s feet and she knows that the lurching feeling is coming from the memory of Pierce’s voice. She wants to go back, to argue with Clint. Prove to him that the man she remembers was callous and efficient and willing to do what needed to be done. That it was a mistake to expect anything else from him. He’d been on the list of Insight targets, and he’d given the order anyway. Her breath is coming out in a tight wheeze and she knows there’s nothing wrong with her. Pierce had never meant to see his work completed. He gave the order anyway, just like he gave the order to erase Clint when he started causing trouble. Because he’d been preparing her for this, just like he’d been preparing James. His plan B.

Natasha swallows. Backs away from the mirror. Leans against the wall. The lights are bright and she closes her eyes. Lets herself fall, until she’s sitting on the floor because she doesn’t need to move to visualize this one. She’s seen it so many times before. She’s searching for that gratifying sense of absolute surety. The one that drove her to run. To steal the plane, filled with supplies. Holding a gun to the head of one of the pilots felt so simple. There was still dirt under her fingernails from the last mission, a swollen cut on her lip stinging whenever she opened her mouth. It was exhilarating when she took off, when she saw agents and technicians shrinking to the size of ants behind her. The thrill wore off, just like she’d known it would. But she didn’t turn around. There was no doubt in her. She flew to Osaka and jumped, letting her copilot turn back around. There was just enough fuel to last if he radioed for an emergency landing. It didn’t matter to her if he survived.

Landing on the ground sent a jolt through her legs all the way to her neck. No time to feel unbalanced, because they were already after her. Guns out, she used the parachute to confuse them as she ran for cover. Took out three and hid in their vantage spots. All she knew was that this was an abandoned factory, and that this group had been inspired by the sarin attacks a few years previous. They were making their own, planning an attack. Natasha anticipated S.H.I.E.L.D.’s missiles would only be a few hours behind her. Plenty of time.

They figured out where she was picking them off from quickly. Didn’t matter. The guard house was a temporary hideaway. Natasha waited for them to surround her before she dropped the twenty feet to the ground. Did something to her leg, the stupid bones that never wanted to stay healed. Sharp pain. She shoved her gun into the neck of the first obstacle in front of her and used the spray of blood to distract and disgust the others. Threw his body and chased it with a spray of bullets that tore through it into her targets. The bomb set in the guardhouse exploded and the fire did the rest of her work for her.

And it drew out the rest of them. Not a covert mission of course. The point was to make a scene.

Natasha ran around the flames, which gave her enough cover to dodge the bullets, though a few lucky ones scraped past her thigh and shoulder. They stung, but she barely felt it. Too much adrenaline.

Out of bullets, she switched to knives, slashing through everything in her path on the way to the roof. There were at least forty corpses behind her when she stopped keeping count. Roof access blocked as there were several people making their way down the ladders she needed. Natasha yanked one down by his boot, dislocating the leg. Grabbed the head, slammed it into the wall. Once was enough for a concussion, twice broke his neck, and three times gave her the satisfying crunch of bone breaking and blood slapping the wall. The others were scared of her, backing away, back up the ladder. She followed them up, skipping rungs to reach them in time. Panic made them clumsy and stupid, they tried to shoot but she was faster. Knife to the leg. Enough to make him lose balance. She gutted him on his way down.

The roof had a sniper, but he wasn’t prepared for close combat. Slapped the gun away with the back of her arm, fist to the neck, foot to the knee, rifle was in her hands now, aim and fire. Use the rest of the bullets on the ones still distracted by the fire down below. Let it burn.

Kicked in the door. Slapped the butt of the rifle in the first face she saw. Dislocated jaw. Natasha shouldered him into the wall to crack his ribs. Blood around lips. Didn’t bother to put him out of his misery, left him choking on it. There were three more ahead and she was out of bullets. Threw two knives and let the third one’s surprise and confusion be her advantage. She grabbed his neck and twisted his throat. There were alarms, lights flashing, and it was like all the sounds in the world were muted. The only way was forward. Because down below, she could see Clint. Tied and bloody and looking pale but not dead yet. His arrows were in front of him and he was surrounded.

Natasha gave up the tactical advantage of height and jumped into the center of the room. Threw bombs at the top floors on her way down. Landed. Picked up the arrows. No time for the bow. She grabbed the first person in reach, fumbling with his weapon. Eyeball was the perfect target, direct access to the brain if she went deep enough. She did. Another idiot behind her, trying to grab her. Left his throat vulnerable. The arrow didn’t snap as she dug into his spinal cord. She tore it back out and used it on the coward trying to run from her, opening up a hole in his gut. She dropped the arrow and tore out his bowels. Grabbed his gun as he fell screaming. Shot anyone still paying attention to her first. The runners were next. The ones putting out the fires went last.

There were sirens blaring far away. They broke through the silence in her brain. The smoke must have caught someone’s attention. Or the explosions. She glared at Clint. Grabbed his chin. Put one of the arrows underneath it and looked at him. Made sure he could see her. He wasn’t injured enough to be delirious, and his pupils were wide. He didn’t try to pull away, though she was sure he had the energy to and he looked like he wanted to. Maybe shock.

“I am just as _good_ as any of you. Maybe even _better_. You gave me that choice. Don’t you _dare_ take it back.”

He’d taught her that. No take-backs.

She considered it for a second.

“This is not a joke.”

He’d taken a breath.

“Yeah Natasha. I got that.”

Pierce had tried to hold that over her head. She’d gone against orders, killed just shy of a hundred people, going after an agent that had been considered an acceptable loss. Stolen a plane and supplies and taken a hostage to do it. She knows what she is capable of. And perhaps this is a thing that should make her feel guilty. But it is also a thing she thinks that she is proud of.

She nods to herself.

Just a silly rebel after all.

* * *

 Rumlow’s teeth are visible when he smiles, like a hunter anticipating the sweetness of blood rushing down its throat when it digs into the neck of its prey. Poetic, she thinks.

“You found the location of the helicarriers already of course.”

Natasha nods.

“They tend to be pretty big. Not that easy to hide.”

“Sure.” Rumlow cracks his neck. Unprofessional. She glares at him. He gets the message, stands up a little straighter, like she knows he remember how to do. “Sorry boss.” The mirth isn’t gone though. “Wheels up at 0200 tomorrow morning. Plenty of time to run an inspection if you think-”

“Were Pierce’s orders followed to the letter?”

He stiffens. The laughter is seeping away now.

“Of course.”

She lets the hint of a smile tug at her lips.

“An inspection won’t be necessary then. We can consider this a test. If the organization is really such a well-oiled machine as it likes to advertise, I’m sure there won’t be any problems. And if there are…” she pauses, because it is dramatic. “Then depending on their severity, I may reconsider whether running it is a good use of my time.”

Rumlow nods.

“There won’t be any problems.”

She lets just her derision show.

“And you’ll make sure of that, will you?” She shakes her head. “I know you’re here to vet me, the same way I’m vetting you. You’ll pass that order up the food chain and then maybe they’ll decide whether or not Pierce’s protégéis worth the trouble. I know how this works.” She pauses again. “That’s how I’d do it anyway.”

Rumlow doesn’t budge, and she would be impressed with his ability to learn quickly if she had any intention of doing anything with him at all.

“What do you have to say to that, soldier?”

He nods.

“I expect you’d also have had this building bugged well in advance.” She doesn’t confirm or deny it, but she doesn’t have to. He draws the correct conclusion. “And you’ve been putting on a show for them ever since you walked in.”

She inclines her head.

“You _are_ a quick learner. It would be a valuable skill if your allegiance hadn’t already been bought.”

He dropped into a fighting stance before she’d finished her first sentence.

“Hydra’s not all bad. Once you get to know them.”

“Oh I know them pretty well.” She doesn’t need to move. She already knows she can take him, which is the point. “And I know the world doesn’t need anyone else like me in it. And it’s definitely got enough bystanders like you.” She dodges his first punch, faster than he expects her to be. She always is.

“Keep talking,” he mutters, but he knows he’s lost. He’s just stalling for backup.

“I’ll let you have the first hit,” she smiles as he misses again. “If you can land one.” She can stall too.

He tries to rush her, all brute force and no finesse. It’s a good tactic to use against someone like her; small and agile but not built for muscle. Someone like her might be unlucky and rammed into the wall. But Natasha Romanoff makes her own damn luck. She somersaults out of the way, confusing him too much to follow through correctly. And his new strength is taking him by surprise, so he over-accelerates. Slams his shoulder into the wall, and for a second it feels like the entire building is going to crumble.

“Better be careful,” she lets him know where she is. Several feet behind him. “This entire place is still irradiated. You don’t want to inhale too much of that dust.”

He’d being more cautious now, because he knows he was an idiot to reveal as much as he already has. His strength is a weakness right now because he hasn’t yet learned how to control it. And he knows she’s clever. He’s seen her in action. He knows what she’s like. Calculating and quick. He knows he’s out of his league with her and even though he’s not afraid, he knows now that he might have been sent here to die. If anything, he looks offended.

“It does seem like a waste.” She sways right when he expects her to go left, ending up on his non-dominant side. He tries to grab her, which she anticipates. It’s not his fault she’s better than him.

“You’re making the wrong choice,” he says, not out of breath at least.

“If this is how Hydra rewards loyalty, it feels like I’m making the right choice.” She feints twice, and his footwork is clumsy where she knows it was once graceful. His new body is telegraphing his intent more than he realizes, but he can’t prevent it. Given time, he could be a real challenge for her. His strength could be honed. And she knows he can be cruel. “And that’s coming from the most disloyal person we know.” But she can be cruel too. “Unless there’s another infamous traitor in your little black book.”

He smirks.

“Just one.”

She can hear the planes too. Excellent timing. Natasha pretends to be distracted, and Rumlow takes full advantage. A fist to the skull. Not the most refined tactic, but it does knock her down. He lands on top of her, pressing her shoulders into the floor. “Thanks for letting me get the first one in. Very chivalrous of you.” His breath smells like mint.

“If that’s your backup,” she grunts, “they’re late. Not the kind of thing I’d allow on my watch.”

Another smirk. He relishes his victories too much.

“It won’t be your concern for much longer. Personally, I’d lock you up and throw away the key, but someone still thinks you’re useful. All we have to do is add your name to the list, lock you up for the rest of the night, and wait until those helicarriers are in the air. By this time tomorrow you’ll be ready to comply, and so will seven million other people.” Rumlow starts speaking towards a corner above their heads, delivering his report. Black Widow contained. Chose the wrong side. Blah blah blah.

She pretends to struggle until she hears the plane hit the ground. She needs visual confirmation.

“Damn you Rumlow,” might be going a little too far with the theatrics, but he doesn’t notice. Idiot is letting this go to his head. How he wasn’t at his peak and he still managed to pin the Black Widow. He knows her. He should know better than to think that she’s harmless just because she looks vulnerable. It will almost be a relief to be around someone who doesn’t constantly underestimate her.

“You said you had her contained,” the Soldier says when he walks in the door.

Rumlow snorts.

“Look at her, she’s down-” Natasha kicks him firmly in the face.

Howling, he goes down. She has just enough time to elbow him in the neck. Would definitely be a fatal blow to a non-enhanced human. Cutting off circulation to the brain- definitely not good for an enhanced human either. She doesn’t care if he lives or not. But she has bigger problems. The Soldier is fast, he’d been hiding how fast he was before. Or maybe the battle in DC damaged him. It doesn’t matter. She can’t get out of the way, she instead she prepares for the impact as her back meets the wall. They go through, because nothing is sturdy enough to hold him. She looks into his eyes and they’re clear, not feral. He’s been wiped recently then.

The rush of air before they meet the ground is enough to remind her where they are. The impact loosens his grip on her- the right hand is weaker and she takes advantage. The left tears open her tac suit but it doesn’t matter. She rolls and it’s already working on him. The Soldier tries to stand but he stumbles, and the serum has caught him by surprise. Natasha drops the needle, lets him see it leaving her hand. The sunlight catches the metal before it lands on the poisoned grass. She activates her comm.

“Fury, he’s down.”

The speaker on her wrist chirrups. Message received.

He looks up at her before the toxin takes hold completely. Natasha makes her face blank, giving nothing away. But he- James. He looks relieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in seeing what Chernobyl actually looks like you can see some photos here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/16010/dispatches-radioactive-wasteland and here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/55494/16-spooky-hell-photos-inside-chernobyl
> 
> Also: Three more chapters left + 1 epilogue. 0_0


	33. Rhythmic Contraction

S.H.I.E.L.D. deals with the rest of Rumlow’s backup effectively. It is not a challenge. Hydra was so sure that their Soldier would be able to handle the situation on the ground that they did not bother to use excessive force against her. Maybe if they hadn’t wiped him, he would have told them that they were making a mistake. Natasha has observed that the time following a wipe is not when the Soldier is at his tactical best. She’d been counting on it, in fact. That failure meant that there were no fatalities on either side.

Of course, questioning every Hydra agent will take a long time, and they only have a few hours before the helicarriers go up. At which point it won’t matter.

Fury, Coulson, May, and Morse are all waiting for her after decontamination is complete. The new clothing provided feels starchy and fresh, and she can still feel the precautionary iodine pill in her throat.

“Agent Romanoff,” Fury nods at her. “Well done. You’ve been briefed on the plan.”

She’d read it while waiting to be cleared in the medical isolation wing.

“It won’t work.” She sits down. “Or. It will work. But there will be too many unnecessary casualties. I don’t think we want the bad PR right now.”

May isn’t smiling, but Natasha can sense her amusement. Coulson nods.

“You’re right. But bad PR is less of a concern to me than what will happen if Hydra succeeds, so I’m hoping you have a better idea.”

Natasha nods.

“Use plan A as a diversion. They’ll be expecting some kind of attack so they’ll use as many of their forces as they can to keep you all away from the helicarriers. They’ll be betting on their success, so it doesn’t matter how many of their resources they use now. Play defense, let them think they’re safe.” They’re all listening to her. “I’ll go in before the carriers go up. Access the program from the control panel inside the base and deactivate it before it’s in the air. Once the rewrite program is no longer a threat they’ll be stuck defending a useless weapon with no escape plan. It’ll be easy to take them down.”

Morse nods.

“You sure you want to go in? You’ve been in the field for months.”

Natasha shrugs to make herself seem less harsh. “I’m not compromised. If deactivation fails I can do it manually from the main carrier itself.” She glances at Fury. “And unlike everyone else here I’m equipped to take the Soldier down if necessary.”

May and Coulson glance at each other.

“The Soldier is still in custody, and will remain so until we can figure out what to do with him,” he says.

Natasha shakes her head.

“You can’t hold him. No one can. Unless you drug him, and he won’t let you pull that one on him twice. He might want to be caught, but his programming won’t let him stay that way.”

Coulson is chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“The security here is the best in the world.”

“And I’m telling you he’s better.” She doesn’t blink. “The best thing you can do is make it easy for him, because if you don’t he’s going to kill anyone who gets in his way.”

May sighs. “And he’ll take any information he has with him.”

Natasha shrugs.

“I’ll do my best to get something useful out of him before I leave, but it won’t be much. You’ll have more success interrogating the other prisoners. They’ll all have low-level clearance, but they’ll be more receptive to an immunity deal if you can put one on the table.”

They all look at Fury, and she examines him for any tells. He hides them well, but he doesn’t like this. Tough.

“I’d rather send a team with you.”

She shakes her head.

“I can get in undetected if I’m on my own. I can’t do that if there’s anyone else behind me.”

May nods. “And if you fail?” It’s not accusatory. “There should be someone else as backup.”

Natasha nods.

“You’ll have to call Captain Rogers.” She looks up at Fury. “Not yet.” Swallows. “If I have to kill Barnes, I’d rather he didn’t find out until afterwards.”

Fury nods.

“Understood. We can position him nearby and call him in if you think you’re not going to make it.”

Morse grimaces.

“From what I know about him, he’d rather be told.”

Natasha shrugs.

“Tell him it was my decision. If I fail, I won’t be around to face his wrath.”

Glancing around, Natasha makes a note to refrain from using gallows humor with this group. They don’t take it well.

“Can you handle the rest?” Natasha stands. “I’d like to have a word with him before he breaks out.”

Agent May nods. Fury watches her rise. Coulson leans back in his chair, too suspicious now. He wasn’t like that before. That idealistic man is dead. It’s strange to consider.

“What are you going to do Agent Romanoff?”

She gives him a charming smile, since she knows he’s not going to believe anything she tells him. Might as well give him cynicism in return.

“I’m going to piss him off.”

The walk is short, and no one bothers her. Of course everyone on board knows who she is. Natasha Romanoff is famous among these people. The agent that turned for the sake of freedom and democracy. Betrayed her country. Became one of the best spies S.H.I.E.L.D. ever trained. It didn’t matter that she turned for the sake of a girlish dream implanted in her memories. Or that her country betrayed her first. She absorbs this- anger. Nothing less than rage will serve her now.

The Soldier is contained (temporarily) in a cell at the heart of the carrier. There’s a barrier between them. They’ll be able to see and hear each other. Unless she uses the controls to mute either side of the conversation, or plunge him into darkness. Or cut off his oxygen.

He’s also in magnetic cuffs that have him pinned to the wall. Similar to the variety used to contain Rogers in DC. As she absorbs the data, a message is delivered to her phone. She checks it, pretending to mask her fury with something mundane. He’ll sense it anyway. She’s counting on it. Monica Chang has finished the errand, and will rendezvous in twenty minutes. Enough time.

He smiles, lips parting in a sigh.

“I’m glad it’ll be you,” he whispers.

“Oh, I’m not here to kill you.” Natasha sits down across from him, at eye level. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He rubs his lips together.

“Natasha-”

“It’s not that you don’t deserve it.” She lets the silence stretch, lets him feel desperate for any sign of affection. Not yet. “It’s not really up to me, but by any standard you’re doomed. Seventy years as Hydra’s assassin. John F. Kennedy. Howard Stark. Martin Luther King. Salvador Allende. Nicaragua. Iran. Bosnia. And that’s just what’s on paper.” Her tone grows accusatory as she progresses. “I’m sure when they’re curating a list of your crimes they’ll find someone who’s able to read between the lines.”

He swallows.

“You know what you have to do.”

She shakes her head, clicks her tongue against the back of her teeth.

“See there’s where you’re wrong. I don’t _have_ to do anything.” He looks so frail hanging there, and she knows it’s not true. Rejects it. “Poor, sad little soldier. How much of it do you even remember? Just pieces? Can you remember your body moving without you, all those triggers underneath your finger?” She knows that feeling, lets it sicken her. He’ll misattribute her expression because he’s projecting his misery onto her. It’s almost like she’s not even here. “All shell-shocked and miserable. A prisoner of war with one good arm and one better one.” She glares, standing like she’s on fire. “Say something!”

Of course, the programming doesn’t respond to mockery. He’s not a caged lion thirsty to lash out the second someone gets too close to his cage. Like a computer, he responds to commands.

“I never wanted this.” He’s hyperventilating. Panicking. “You know that, you understand. I only wanted.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “What I asked for. I begged for it. Over and over. They wouldn’t.”

“Of course not.” She quirks an eyebrow at him. “Why waste such a beautiful machine?”

He shakes his head. Her mouth feels dry. Next tactic. Make it look like a misstep. 

“Why did you save me? I was falling, I would have been injured. Possibly enough to be brought back inside to complete the rewrite. You caught me. That wasn’t part of your command, was it?”

He shakes his head.

“No one commanded me not to.”

Why would they? He was the one who brought her in. An oversight.

“And before. The first time you gave me this-” she rolls up her shirt, just above the fresh scar. “Did Pierce tell you not to kill me?”

He licks his lips.

“It was a trial.”

She lets herself feel cold when she hears the word. Lets it make her think of deserts and snow and blood coating her fingers and broken bones in her leg. Only one survivor.

“Then you should have killed me. I failed.”

He nods. No more words. She steps closer.

“Tell me why you didn’t kill me.”

His eyes are so wide.

“I couldn’t.” He forces the words out. “I missed.”

Natasha nods. Turns away because she knows he has something more to say. It will make him feel significant.

“I tried.” She turns at the sound of his raspy voice. “When I first saw you. I knew you were mine.” He’s gasping, though without glancing at the monitor she knows that the oxygen levels in the cell are acceptable. “You were so small. I held you-” he pulls against the cuffs. They’ll hold for now. Until the augmented arm adjusts and dismantles the cuff. “I had you in my hands. And I thought, maybe I could spare you.” His lips are trembling now. “I thought I could, but I didn’t.” Tears, he can’t control them like she can, leaking down his cheeks. “I failed you. I’m sorry.”

She gets as close as she can without touching the barrier.

“You think you deserve to ask me for death? You think you deserve to ask me for _anything_ now?”

He shakes his head.

“No. But I have to try. Natasha if I don’t-”

“What.” She turns away again, spins back around like she’s thought of something else to say. Such a precarious dance. “After everything you’ve done, you think you just get to _die_? You should know by now that nothing will ever be that easy for us.” Natasha lets the shame creep through her. “He would have saved you.” Directs her anger at him, full force. “Rogers knows everything you did and he still would have saved you. You didn’t come to me because you needed me.”

He grimaces.

“He wouldn’t have done it, he still won’t.”

“You came to me-”

“You haven’t called him here because you know he won’t do it!”

“Because you are _scared_ of him.” She slams her fist against the barrier. “You’re afraid of him because you know that the path to redemption is pain and work and you want to be finished. You would rather carry your burden to the grave than make amends. Because you are afraid to fail, and you think your failure would break him.” She snarls. “It already broke him.”

He shakes his head.

“No, no. Don’t let him be.” He gasps. “Please. I’m not what he wants me to be."

“Who,” she chokes out. “You’re not _who_ he wants you to be.”

“It’s too late for me!” He screams. “There’s nothing I can do to make amends for seventy years Natasha. You know what I was. You’re not like him, you can see it. _Please_ tell me you can see it.”

She steps backwards.

“You’re right.” Crosses her arms. “I’m nothing like him.” She sighs. “I’m like you.”

He chews on the inside of his cheeks. No command. He’s not sure how to respond. Not yet. She’ll push harder.

“Your heart rate increased a few minutes ago. You’re sweating, despite the slightly cool temperature in there. Eyes dilated, your extremities probably feel numb. And your mouth is dry too. You barely notice anymore. But then, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were getting frequent panic attacks when you’re not in the field.” She focuses her gaze back on his. “I wish I was more like you James.” He flinches when he hears the name. “I don’t get nightmares. I don’t get panic attacks.” She spits out the last word.

He’s breathing erratically, but his body is becoming more stable as she talks.

“You survived something.” Natasha sits back down. “You came out of it with scars, but you’re alive, and now your body is trying to heal.” She adopts the contemplative tone of voice she knows he’ll recognize. “It’s like frostbite. It doesn’t hurt while it’s happening because your body goes numb. You get used to the cold when you’re out in the storm. And when you start to get warm again it burns like hell. But it just means you’re fine.” Pierce had used a similar metaphor to describe her defection. It worked better in the context of the Cold War. “The fire means you’re healing.”

It’s jarring to think of Pierce, even though he didn’t care for her. She was conditioned to think that Pierce loved her, and she enjoyed that love in the girlish way he enjoyed. Naive and childish and brimming with hope for the glorious future they would build together. It was a lie, but the pain she feels is real enough. She would have shot him if Fury hadn’t. She wonders if her grief would be different if she had. As it was, she only chose not to be his hostage.

The sadness in her voice will be mistaken for regret.

“Sometimes I think I might not be healing because there might not be anything for me to heal from.” She shakes her head, wearing half a smile. “There’s no ‘before’ for me. But even if there was.” Looking away like she’s hiding what she feels. “I’m not like you and Steve. I was never meant to be one of the good ones.”

“Don’t you dare,” he growls.

Bingo.

“James-”

“You are _not_ what they made you.” His body is perfectly stable, and his fury is real. “I am twisted and ruined but you are the _only_ good I have left. Anything worth saving of mine belongs to you.” His expression is fearsome and alive like she’s never seen it before.

“You don’t believe that James.” She leans closer. “I’ve met my mother, remember? I know what you both did to make me. And if I’m half you, I’m half her too. I am _exactly_ what Department X wanted me to be, and they made sure there was nothing left.”

He shakes his head.

“You ran from them. You broke away when no one could.”

“I was a fool-”

“You have tried, over and over again to do what is right, I’ve _seen_ you-”

“I was under someone else’s control the entire time-”

“You are alive!” The cuffs are groaning. “That’s all that matters Natasha. That’s all I want is for you to be all right-” he slumps, knocking his head back against the wall. Pushes the last of the air from his lungs before he takes a new breath. “I never want you to feel this way. Like you’ll never be whole again. If I could, I would have spared you from the hell we came from. But please, let me spare you from this. You’re alive. Nothing else matters now. Just keep going.”

She stands up. Wipes her eyes perfunctorily.

“Thank you James.”

His head jerks after her.

“Natasha-”

“All this time, you’ve been trying to convince me that Hydra wiped over anything you had that was worth saving a long time ago. But you’re on the right side after all.”

He shakes his head.

“The programming, you know what I’ll do if you-”

She spins, smiling.

“Oh. I’m counting on it. See I’m trying this new thing where I do whatever the hell I want to do. And what I want is to save you, and make sure that what happened to us never happens again. That second one’s going to keep me busy for a while. So I’m going to get you done by end of day tomorrow, how does that sound?”

He doesn’t answer her, which she thinks is a nice first step when it comes to dismissing commands and direct questions. Either that or he’s too shocked to say anything at all.

She’ll take it.


	34. Kinesthesia

She’s geared up with the shield on her back forty-five minutes later. Her plane takes off, and she knows that James won’t be far behind her. No alarms yet but it makes sense that he’d wait. She currently poses the greatest threat to his escape. And his stability.

Getting inside the compound is a pain. Morse accompanies Natasha to the edge of the complex, where the hydraulic system is located. The pressure will be unpleasant, but not deadly. Natasha suits up, monitoring the Agent guarding her six. There’s nothing to suggest another allegiance, but Natasha didn’t get this far by trusting without verifying. After her equipment passes the final inspection, Natasha hoists the shield over her shoulders once again.

“You sure you don’t want my gun?”

Natasha shrugs.

“No point. I’ve got my knives. Which work underwater. Guns generally do not.”

Morse nods.

“But after?”

“I’ll pick one up when I get there.” She begins to turn the spindle on the tank. “I’ll signal when the helicarriers have been disabled.”

Morse nods.

“We’ll be there to pick you up..” She smiles. “Try not to do too much damage. Helicarriers don’t grow on trees.”

Natasha rolls her eyes.

“Don’t tell Fury that.” She opens the tank. The water rushing beneath her is steady. No chemical smell- just the faint odor of steel. Natasha attaches the breathing mask, nodding at Morse. The Agent salutes in return, which Natasha assumes means something along the lines of “good luck”. It’s not like Morse is in command here.

She dives.

The water is frigid, and the stream threatens to push her in the opposite direction as the compound. Natasha adjusts her position, and starts to swim. The strain on her muscles is bearable. It will be difficult, but as long as she doesn’t stop she’ll be able to break through to the other side. Behind her, Morse closes the tank. Natasha turns on the light attached to her chest. The tank is being fed by the source about half a mile away- if she can make it that far the water will be easier to swim through, not propelled by pressure like it is here. She swims, forcing her breathing to remain even. She has plenty of oxygen, but she knows how many things could go wrong on this op, and she doesn’t intend to waste any resources.

She reaches the source and forces her way through to the other side, water tugging at the straps keeping her supplies and the shield attached. Natasha grits her teeth and forces her body out. The water is still rushing all around her into the tank, and she turns slowly, wary of being caught in the deluge and brought backwards. The latch to close the tank is heavy, but she forces it shut.

The pressure eases. Natasha allows herself to take one heavy breath, compensating for the heavy exertion. The water will be redirected to the other tunnels. System shouldn’t be overloaded- too many redundancies to avoid the pressure becoming too great. And the absence of attack suggests she has slipped inside undetected. Natashatakes a moment to restore her sense of direction before turning the light off. She plans to come out in the water treatment facility. Few guards. Minimal video monitoring. Plenty of noise to cover her onslaught.

Natasha swims until she reaches the other side of the chamber. It’s reinforced, but she knows that it will be weaker around the joints. She searches by touch- her other senses are useless in the dark.

Bomb planted, she has fifteen seconds to swim out of the blast radius. The rush of water will pull her where she needs to go. She will sustain damage, but none of it will be permanent. Five, four, three…

Natasha lets the surge carry her. The raging sound blares in her ears. Light, air. She surfaces on her back, facing the ceiling. Lands on the shield- ideal. It’s jarring, and she slides across the floor, vaulted by the weight of tons of water rushing all around her. Light bruising on her limbs, heavier on her lower back. Natasha tastes blood, but upon examination the worst of her facial injuries are a split lip. The failsafes will be activated soon enough. Cut off the supply, redirect the flow. But she still has a few seconds of cover. She takes another deep breath.

Her eyes have adjusted to the light, and she spots three cameras. An issue once the water clears. Seven technicians- but they’re all distracted by the damage, running straight for the control panels trying to activate the mechanisms that will prevent a system shutdown. All non-essential personnel are being instructed to evacuate. They’re not looking for her.

Yet.

Cameras first. Natasha gets to her feet, slogging through the calf-deep water around her. She throws two knives at once, and the third follows within seconds. Disconnects the wires maintaining the feed. It’ll look like a short-out from the water, though not for long. She plans to be gone long before it’s an issue. The water is receding, the reservoir cut off. Running, she takes cover behind a pressure monitor. One of the techs is coming into view to assess the damage. Natasha is prepared to take him down if she has to, a knife already in hand. But she’ll avoid it if she can- his absence would be noticed, and she wants to get further inside before Hydra becomes aware of her presence.

The tech doesn’t see her, distracted by the mess she left him with. _It probably won’t be his problem for long,_ she muses. If she’s lucky, his employer won’t exist when she’s done today.

Natasha smiles at that thought.

First: Acquire a uniform and identification card. Won’t hold up under more than a cursory glance, but the other bombs she left behind will surely give her the cover she needs. Natasha corners one of the ‘nonessential personnel’ lagging behind. Male, but only a few inches taller and wider than her. Gentle suffocation, no permanent damage. She backs the body into a maintenance closet- opened with generous application of force. Simple.

Natasha abandons the oxygen tank, mask, and other obsolete supplies in exchange for the too-large lab coat and identification. It’s long enough to cover most of her tac suit. Her skin still feels damp, but there’s nothing she can do about that. Irrelevant distraction. She moves, taking the doorknob with her. Whoever Anderson Clarke is, he’s actually fortunate. Locked up in a closet when things start to go south: he’ll have plausible deniability when he’s finally found. She’s (almost) done him a favor.

She does take his reading glasses though. Small enough that she can wear them low on her nose and not obstruct her vision, and the frames will help to obscure her features. Natasha Romanoff is too recognizable these days. Second: Reach the launch pad, slip inside the control room. Disabling the guards and replacing the rewrite sequence with the special program designed by Banner and Hill are the third thing on her list.

She hasn’t accounted for the Soldier. She knows this is an oversight.

The corridor is still unmonitored; the techs are no longer in a panic over the explosion. They’ll find the source in a few minutes if they know what they’re doing. Natasha glances at the emergency exit maps, determining the location of the hangar. Matches up with the intelligence Agent Morse was able to deliver. West side of the building. Most practical: The cold air coming in from the East could make a takeoff treacherous in the wrong weather conditions. Natasha walks purposefully, though not rudely. Adopting the gait of someone who knows where they belong and is needed urgently elsewhere. Uninteresting in a compound this large. Necessary to avoid scrutiny, at least until Coulson’s team has started their attack. With luck, it’ll delay the launch.

She doesn’t intend to rely on luck of course.

The compound is laid out like a grid. Predictable for the staff, vulnerable to intruders. Natasha predicts that she is about halfway to the control station for the helicarriers when she is made. The signs are subtle. Cameras more focused, and the non-combat personnel stop appearing in her path, redirected somewhere safe. At least Hydra has learned not to underestimate her. Of course, they think she’s walked right into their clutches. As if she has not already made herself clear: She has no intention to join them. If they think they can take her against her will, clearly they haven’t been paying attention.

She walks into a long hallway, and hears the doors locking shut behind her. Heavy click. Deadbolts. Not an issue; she didn’t need to go that way. Natasha walks confidently towards the trap she is sure is waiting for her. Three yards ahead there are doors on either side of her. There will be a team prepared to take her down. Instructed to deliver fatal injuries only if absolutely necessary. She can take advantage of their foolish desire to take her alive. Wonders if Rumlow will have been assigned to this team. Doubtful. Too many issues to work through, considering he got his ass handed to him the last time they met. His ego is too fragile for him to be an effective combatant.

Right on schedule, the doors open and men spill out.

Poor planning, to have such large teams bottlenecked in the doorway. Limits their attack to just one on each side at any given moment. The first two go down easy, a knife through their skulls- between the eyes of course. Baton rounds come next. Aiming at her legs- they’ll know about the old injury. It was thoroughly documented in her file, along with her past missions, her training and abilities. The bullets ricochet off the floor as Natasha chooses the left side first. Grabs the gun of the soldier at the front, aims it at the head of the two filing out behind her, uses his strength to heave herself up. She wraps her legs around his hip and drives another knife into his throat, through the vulnerable gap between his facial gear and shoulder. He yells, going down, and she pushes him into the two idiots behind him. They stumble, weighed down by all of their weapons and tactical gear. In the meantime, the shield is protecting her six, giving Natasha plenty of time to clear this room before dealing with the other half of the team.

She counts seven as she stands up, disarming the man underneath her as he rapidly loses blood. Gun on one hand, knife in the other, she knows how to deliver fatalities with rubber rounds. Natasha aims for pressure points first, disarming the two armed with lethal weapons as her first priority. She hears them shout as she fractures fingers, snaps collarbones, breaks kneecaps. With her right hand she drives her knife up through the chin of one, stabs another in the kidney. More bullets hit the shield- they must not realize it’s real. Or they’re stupid and think that they can break vibranium with nonlethal weapons.

The ones in this room are beginning to catch on: lethal force might be necessary. Unfortunately for them their commanding officer didn’t see fit to give all of them the correct gear for a lethal fight, and the ones that did come prepared are still preoccupied with the injuries she delivered. One of the remaining guards is smart enough to try and grab a grenade from his injured comrade, but he’s not fast enough. Natasha throws another knife, pinning his hand to the thigh of the man he was reaching for. Femoral artery severed means two dead, and another combatant temporarily eliminated. Two still standing in this room, and so far she’s counted eight in the other room, who by now will have made it into the hallway. Which means she has two hostages to choose from to break through their defenses.

Natasha kills the competent one- she’ll elicit less sympathy. The last one standing got there by hanging back and letting the others dive in. Smart when you don’t know what you’re doing. And if the rest of the Hydra team were smart, they’d shoot him to get to her. But human sentimentality is difficult to override. She supposes she’s found at least a few useful applications for it though, so it’s not entirely useless.

She walks out holding the gun to the man’s neck. He’s tall and provides excellent cover. None of them see the grenade at her feet until she kicks it into their well-formed line. They don’t have enough time to duck for cover; all Natasha needs to do is kick the back of her hostage’s knees and pull him down over her so that his body absorbs the worst of the blast. He’s heavy, and his scorched skin reeks, but Natasha only feels a little heat nipping at her ankles.

Standing, she dumps the corpse on the floor with the rest of them. Natasha recovers the knives she used, and borrows the best weapons while she’s at it. She hears the yelps of the injured that she left behind in the room, but there’s no point in killing them. They can’t follow her, and by now any backup they might have called will be dealing with the threat from outside. Hydra should have disabled her when they had the chance. The Soldier would have been their best option. Surely they must know that she can override the rewrite program?

The rest of the trip to the control room is uneventful. Her route is intuitive, and anyone who sees her finds a way out of her path as expediently as possible. She’s still wearing the bloodstained lab coat, and the bright red on white fabric states her intentions well enough. She only has to shoot three people naive enough to think they should take a stand against her. All combat trained staff are being directed to the upper levels, which is where S.H.I.E.L.D. will be making their assault. Right on schedule. Natasha uses the stolen identification card to access the control room. It empties after she fires a few rounds into the most senior staff present. She lets the rest of them flee, securing the door behind them.

The control panel is simple to navigate. Natasha scans the systems before finding the right section. She activates the comm at her wrist, connecting to Coulson’s team.

“Agent Romanoff reporting sir.”

There’s less than half a second before Coulson’s response.

“Status?”

“I’m in the control room. I’ll have access to the program in fifteen seconds.”

“Excellent work Agent. We’ve got them occupied outside, you’ve got time.”

Natasha reaches for the device given to her by S.H.I.E.L.D. Banner and Hill were thorough; it will wipe out all of Hydra’s systems, give the rewrite program a blank slate. With nothing to broadcast to the world, the system will fail. The targets might feel some momentary disorientation, but won’t suffer any permanent effects. She connects the device. It starts to load.

“Device is connected sir. If their calculations are correct the program will be fully inoperable within ten minutes. I’ll guard the device until I have confirmation.”

“Received Agent Romanoff. Keep me posted, we’ll coordinate our rendezvous after confirmation.”

Natasha glances up at the helicarriers, visible through a reinforced observation window. Smaller than the ones in DC, but their systems will be connected to satellites all around the globe. The signal strength is an impressive feat of engineering. There’s no visible sign that the program is working, but Natasha has chosen to trust Banner and Hill; both their intelligence and their allegiance. It leaves an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. Expecting something to go wrong.

And that’s when she sees him.

Of course he waited, of course. Why escape from S.H.I.E.L.D. when they were going to give him a free ride directly to where he was needed? Inefficient energy expenditure to abscond prematurely. Natasha glares at him through the glass, though she knows there’s no way he can see her. He’s hanging from what must be a reinforced rope, flying over the base amidst Hydra’s gunfire. So many small planes buzzing around Coulson’s ship, trying to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. away from the helicarrier until takeoff. She watches the Soldier leap, landing on one of the planes. He tears off the door, chucks out the pilot, and takes control midair.

At the control panel, the sequence is complete.

“Coulson.”

“Here Agent,” he sounds calm.

“The rewrite program has been deleted from Hydra’s systems. The helicarrier is currently de-weaponized.”

“Currently.”

She’s already moving.

“We have a problem. Your prisoner escaped.”

Into the hall and up the stairs while Coulson confers off the comm.

“We’ll cover it. I’ll send a team out after him.”

“Absolutely not.” Natasha yanks the door to the emergency stairs open, body checking the evacuating technician in her way.

“Agent Romanoff we can handle this.”

“No, you can’t.” She vaults up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Gunfire above her head- she ducks underneath the shield. It’s slowing her down, there’s no time. “Those helicarriers are going to launch and he’s going to activate the program manually.” He might only be able to get one of them, but that’s still a significant portion of the Insight list programmed to think like the Winter Soldier.

“That’s not possible, the device was designed to delete the program from the entire system. There are no backups. We wiped everything, it’s gone.”

“But we didn’t wipe him.” The original program.

Natasha takes cover far back against the wall, taking the shield off her back. Natasha stands behind it as she reaches for the grappling hook at her waist. She shoots it up into the ceiling, then jumps into the air, letting it propel her upwards. The shield protects her from the bullets raining down on her. She shoots around it, taking out the guards above her as she flies past them. When she hits the roof, she throws a grenade down to make sure there are no survivors.

Detaching from the grappling hook, Natasha kicks open the door to the roof. She can hear the engines already. Outside is clear, there are blinding lights everywhere. The launch is starting. She catches a glimpse of the Soldier’s plane as he sails downward. Her view is obscured, but she knows he’ll be landing on the helicarrier shortly.

Not clear whether he saw her. Even carrying the shield, her red hair is unmistakable.

The sound of the first helicarrier beginning its ascent is clear, and Natasha gets ready to jump.

“Agent Romanoff, I’m calling in Plan B.”

She catches the hood of one of the turbines. It roars underneath her, and she can feel the steady thermals tugging at the shield on her back- threatening to drag her under. Natasha grits her teeth and hauls herself up. “Negative; Coulson don’t call him in.” Gunfire. Of course they’re not leaving this ship unguarded. Learning from their mistakes last time; Natasha would be impressed if it wasn’t such an inconvenience. She leans forward, trying to angle the shield so the bullets are deflected back towards the gunmen. Should have trained for this scenario.

“Agent Romanoff!”

Rolling her eyes, Natasha clears one of the combatants. “Coulson I’m fine!” It affords her enough of an opening to draw her own weapon and fire off two shots. The first is a clean kill, but she only needs to injure the second. Gravity does the rest.

“We’re not prepared to take any chances with this one.”

She breaks into a run, firing upwards. Her targets weren’t prepared for that. The few that survive take cover by the engine, and Natasha’s not prepared to bring the whole thing down just yet. If the rewriting has already begun, she’ll need to _undo_ it. The nuclear option will make that impossible. Last resort.

“If you call _him_ in, the Soldier will be impossible to convert. He’d rather die than face him again.”

Natasha climbs the mechanism surrounding the core, hoisting herself up to the catwalks. The guards start firing as Coulson starts shouting into her ear. There’s a setup for a direct neural connection, two temporal scanners routed into the broadcaster. Still unused. She ducks behind the shield, returning fire over her shoulder using their vague reflections in the metal siding to aim. Easier than using audio cues, too much sound distortion from the wind and the engines beneath them.

“I’m making the call Agent Romanoff.” There’s a heavy tread behind her, she can feel the pressure changing underneath her feet. “You have twenty minutes to take cover until backup arrives. They’re honing in on your location.”

Natasha cuts off her communicator. She’ll finish this in ten.

Taking of the shield, she spins. Throws it and doesn’t need to watch it to know that it ricochets off of faces and tactical vests before it makes its way back to her- summoned by the electromagnetic beacons she added to her cuffs. Fatal blows, cracking skulls and severing arteries, and they resolve the last of her issues with the guards. The Soldier is standing at the opposite end of the catwalk. His expression is grotesque and twisted. He’s still wearing the shabby clothes S.H.I.E.L.D. gave him; the wind whips through the thin fabric. She switches the shield to her left hand to counter his, but he doesn’t move yet.

“Natasha.”

“We both know you can fight this.” She glares at him. “You’ve done it before.”

His fingers twitch.

“You won’t let me use the program.” His eyes are stable and cold. “You’ll do what needs to be done.”

He comes at her, metal fist raised. Natasha blocks it with the shield but she still goes down. The Soldier lands on top of her, snarling, reaching for a knife he must have recovered from one of the fallen guards. He keeps her pinned underneath the shield while he lashes at her. He gets one strike in her abdomen, and all she can do is make sure he avoids all her major organs. The Soldier tears the knife out and raises it again; Natasha twists out of the way, avoiding a direct hit to her right eye. The knife lands in between the grates beneath her and Natasha slides her legs up and around his arm, trapping his fist there. He’ll be able to get out of the hold, but he’ll have to lose the knife to do it, and in the meantime she’s exerting enough pressure to pop his shoulder out of his socket if he keeps struggling. She looks right up into his face, smiling.

“I don’t know if you heard.” She tips the shield upwards. “But I’m doing whatever the hell I want.” Letting the shield go, it slips to the side. Overbalanced, the Soldier slides forward directly into her cuff, which shoots a painful electric pulse through his system. Howling, he straightens, slipping out of her grasp. The knife falls but he can still punch, and he gets two good ones in her face before she can kick him in the gut. He’s winded, she’s dizzy, and both of them know how to fight with worse injuries.

The Soldier stumbles backwards but lands well, Natasha summons the shield as she flips to her feet. It arrives in time for her to block the next volley. She’s not able to keep her footing against the sheer force of the arm; he was holding back his speed and strength before but has no reason to now. Natasha angles herself around, getting the railings behind her. She jumps up to the highest rung and propels herself into the Soldier, smacking him in the face with the shield. Not allowing him to recover, she slashes at him with a knife. On the second swing he catches her wrist with the metal one, crushing the delicate bones. Natasha drops the shield, pulling herself up with his grip as ballast, kicking him in the face. He tips backwards, and she falls with him, rolling forwards when he loses his grip on her wrist. He recovers fast, but she’s already summoning the shield, angling tilting her body so that it hits him in the back of the head on its way to her.

Blood trickles down his forehead and into his eyes, but he’s undeterred.

“If you want to stop me you’ll have to kill me.” He stands. “I’m going to keep coming at you until you put me down.”

Natasha gets up as well. Her right arm is useless, there’s blood in her mouth and more leaking out of the injury in her abdomen. And they’re running out of time.

“Don’t you dare.” She wipes the blood away from her lips. “Our pain’s not over yet.”

He rushes her again, and this time she doesn’t lift the shield to stop him. She drops at the last second so he overshoots his landing- his hands framing her face instead of pinning her shoulders down. Natasha wraps her knees around his hips and flips them, summoning the shield to her right hand. She slams it down against his metal shoulder- it will only be disabled for a minute. She pins his other shoulder with a knife to the biceps, just beneath the humerus. He tugs against it, making the injury worse. Desperate.

“There’s nothing worth saving,” he pants.

“Fuck you!” She puts more pressure on the knife and blood makes her grip slippery. “I’m not here to save you,” she hisses into his face. “I _need_ you.”

He thrusts his hips upwards, wrapping his legs around her neck. It’s enough to pull her off him. She loses her grip on the knife and goes down hard, her head slamming into the steel grate. The chokehold is easy to slip out of, arms between his knees, she tears them away. He’s scrambling to get on top of her again; she throws a taser disk at his chest. He deflects the first one, but she already had a second in the air aimed at his right arm. The Soldier absorbs the shock, his human fingers twitching. The shiled lies between them. She already has a knife in each hand.

“I refuse to suffer without you,” she whispers.

“If you’re not going to kill me, get out of my way!” His voice is ragged as he swings at her, both arms too limp to do more than minimal damage for the moment. Natasha parries with the knives, forcing him to take a defensive position. She moves fast, aiming for joints, collarbone, liver. He keeps backing away from her, though she knows he’s only biding his time until the mechanical arm is fully functional again. She’ll have to force the issue.

Distracting him with a jab at his liver, Natasha kicks his kneecap. He goes down, grimacing when he can barely catch himself, arms still too weak. She stands over him, a knife to his neck. All she has to do is plunge it in. He looks up at her, eyes wide.

“Please.” His breaths are short. “Just do it.”

“You want me to end this?”

He nods, closing his eyes.

She takes the knife away.

“Too bad.”

He opens his eyes.

“Natasha, please-”

“No.” She sheathes the knives. “You can’t lay your redemption on me.”

He doesn’t get up. “I’m _dangerous_ ,” he snarls.

She drops to her knees faster than he can blink.

“We are _both_ dangerous,” she snaps. “All those years ago, you held me in your arms and you let me live. That was _your_ choice. And this is mine.”

He shakes his head.

“It’s the wrong choice, it’s not-”

“I don’t _care_!” She shouts, and her voice carries. “I am your burden! You made me. And I’m the one that made me into something else. I am choosing to wipe both our hands clean! And you won’t take that away.” His eyes look so vacant, she slaps him. “So _live_ damn you!”

He swallows. “ _Why_?”

Natasha stands up.

“You know what’s harder than dying?” She turns on her comm, knowing they’ll be smart enough to use it to find their location. “Atoning.” She swallows. “And I’m tired of doing it alone.”

His eyes are watery.

“I’m sorry.”

Natasha looks down at him, and offers her hand.

“Come on soldier. You’re not done yet.”

He takes her hand.


	35. Vulnerable

The plane flies low, and its lights focus directly on them. Neither Natasha nor the Soldier shield their eyes. She hears Tony through her communicator, amused despite the circumstances.

“Need a lift?”

Natasha squeezes the Soldier’s hand before letting go. A ladder descends for them, and she grabs it, offering it to him. He takes it, allowing her to stabilize his ascent. He’s just as stubborn as he was moments ago, refusing to look back now that the decision has been made. Prepared to accept the consequences of his choice. She waits until he’s reached the top, watching as agents assist him inside before she follows him up.

He’s being escorted behind a privacy curtain when she steps inside. Those confinement scrubs make him look shabby, and the bloodstains are vivid against the thin fabric. Natasha waves away her own examination, glad they’re preoccupied with him. Accepts the water bottle a distracted agent hands her before stepping side. The puncture in her abdomen is concealed by her dark suit, and she can favor her wrist without making it obvious. She takes a few breaths, testing the damage. Twitching her muscles to investigate the level of pain. Natasha catalogues all of the impairments. All non-fatal. A minor reduction in functionality. Temporary.

She removes herself from as many lines of sight as possible before someone can try to give her morphine. Leans against the wall of the plane, feels it rumbling through her core despite the quiet, even tone of Stark’s new engine design. Natasha presses her back into it as she lowers herself onto the floor, knees up. She rests her forearms on them, staring straight ahead. There’s a rumbling in her gut that she can’t attribute to any injury, and she feels her body going into a chemical depression similar to the ebbing of adrenaline. She hasn’t felt that after a fight in years. It makes her heart feel strange, like if she doesn’t hold it in it will leak out of her chest in a bright red trickle. It is ridiculous.

Instead of humoring the emotion she applies some woundseal powder to the stab wound, covering her work. It will stop the bleeding and prevent more stickiness from coating the inside of her suit. The bones in her wrist will have to wait until she can put on a brace. She opens the water and sniffs it before wetting her fingers and rinsing some of the drying blood from the hair at the back of her head. There’s nothing else that will benefit from her attention; the only thing her bruises need is time.

After she’s finished, she gets up to greet Tony in the cockpit, because it would be rude not to, and he is sensitive.

“Speak of the devil,” he turns around when she makes an obvious noise behind him. “You’ll never guess who’s waiting for us back at base.”

“The Star-Spangled Man with a plan?” She raises her eyebrow and he laughs.

“See, I knew you had a sense of humor. Yup. Turns out our Boy Scout has been looking for your Terminator friend back there.” Tony activates the autopilot. “Think he’s gonna try to escape again?”

Natasha sits down beside him.

“There’s nothing stopping him if he does.”

Tony shrugs.

“He’s not a criminal. I’m not gonna tie him down.”

“There’s a confirmed kill list several pages long that might disagree.”

“Yeah, I skimmed it.” Tony shrugs. “I’d say I wasn’t keeping tabs on everyone but I think we all know I was definitely keeping tabs on everyone. Since nobody calls me anymore.” He faces ahead, despite the fact that the plane is currently flying itself and his observation is unnecessary. “Don’t really think it’s my call, is it? Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Pretty sure they treat POWs with a lot of lenience too. But what do I know? I’m just the guy in the suit of armor.”

Natasha hums, sensing that the underlying anger is not directed at her.

“What about brainwashed assassins? I don’t know there’s much precedent for that one.”

Tony barks a laugh.

“I think they put them on a salary and ask them to join the Avengers Initiative.”

He goes quiet. Natasha realizes she has to fill the silence.

“You looked.”

“Yeah.” He looks down for a second. “I was curious. There’s some cool science in there. You know, in between all the fascist brainwashing crap and the torture-y stuff.” He swallows. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She sighs. “I put it out there.”

“That’s not-” Tony’s lips twitch. “I mean.” He groans. “I’m fucking this up. Change of subject: Did you find what you were looking for?”

She nods.

“I did.” She smiles. “Turns out I’m older than I look. For all I know this was my midlife crisis. I should buy a Ferrari.”

Tony snickers.

“How old exactly?”

She shrugs.

“I’ve got about ten years on you.”

He splutters.

“Holy- you should buy _ten_ Ferraris. Would you be offended if I started making recommendations? See cars I can do. I can make you one that flies if you want-”

“Five minutes to landing,” Jarvis announces from the monitor, saving them both from the conversation. Natasha stands, pausing by Tony’s chair. She pats his shoulder as she steps back out of the cockpit. It seems like the appropriate gesture, and she hopes she hasn’t misjudged it. Her frame of reference is too limited. It seems like the kind of thing Clint would do, though she doubts he’s ever faced similar circumstances.

The Soldier is sitting on a gurney, attached to a saline drip. The medical team has left him to his own devices for the moment. His scrubs are in a dingy pile at the bottom of a medical linens bin, though Natasha doubts they will be salvageable. Instead he is wearing pair of dark sweatpants and an undershirt Natasha recognizes from the S.H.I.E.L.D. training uniform.

He nods in acknowledgement when she approaches. Uninvited, she sits beside him. He doesn’t protest. The plane begins its landing procedure.

“I went by James a few times, when I was out with you.” His tone is even. “But before. He called me Bucky.” He turns and looks at her head on. “Which one do I pick?”

“They’re both better than ‘the Soldier’.” She shrugs. “Have a preference?”

He shakes his head.

“People will pick for you, if you don’t,” she murmurs. “Will that bother you?”

He considers it before shaking his head again.

“He’ll be disappointed. It doesn’t matter which one he uses.” He stares at a spot over her shoulder, rolling his lips in between his teeth. Not blinking. Natasha understands that words are sometimes difficult to locate. Given the circumstances, she is willing to be patient with him. When he finally speaks, his words sound like he doesn’t have enough air in his lungs.

“I’m scared,” he whispers. “I’m afraid.”

She watches him, the way his metal fingers twitch. “Of what Sergeant?”

The term surprises him, but he does his best not to show it. Shrugs.

“Hell if I know.” Shakes his head. “It’s been so long. I don’t remember how.” How to be afraid. Without the edge of a scalpel or a drill or the motivating maw of a grinning handler. What to do when you’re afraid of something you’re not supposed to be afraid of. Something that shouldn’t even be on your radar.

“Fear is a leftover of the person you were,” Natasha recites. "That person is supposed to be dead.”

That gets her a smile.

“I guess he’s not a ghost after all.”

She catches his eye as the plane lands. “Hey.” He stares at her intently, and words aren’t enough. She says them anyway. “You’ll be all right.”

He nods, and she knows that it means ‘thank you’ and not ‘I believe you’, because both of them know ‘all right’ is so far from what they are. But lies are the language they know, and sometimes it is useful to believe them.

Rogers is waiting for them, with Sam beside him. Coulson’s team will still be at the launch site, making arrests and dismantling all of Hydra’s systems. Natasha doesn’t mind leaving the clean-up to them, though she’ll examine their reports later. The Soldier steps outside ahead of her, not squinting despite the bright sunlight. He takes one deep breath before forcing himself to keep going.

It is difficult to read Rogers’ expression. His eyes always look so stern, even when he’s smiling. She’d wondered for a while if it had been the serum, if it had forced him to grow into the expression, but she’d found a few photographs from his training in New Jersey, and he’d worn the same expression then. So perhaps the serum accommodated him, and not the other way around. She watches Rogers take a step forwards, and then another. She sees the Soldier bracing for an attack, knows he won’t fight back despite all the training he has that will tell him he should. But Rogers doesn’t hit him. He stops in front of the Soldier, staring at him. Natasha doesn’t know what he could be looking for, but she feels a few seconds of sympathy because she remembers that feeling. Like no matter how deep he looks, he won’t find anything good worth fighting for in her depths. And then Steve does what she ultimately knew he would do. He grabs the Soldier’s arms and pulls him into a tight hug.

The Soldier is surprised, and it takes him a few seconds to respond. When he does, he clutches Rogers’ back, fingers digging into the heavy jacket. Clutching the material almost hard enough to rip. Natasha exhales, waiting politely.

Shaking his head, Sam joins her.

“All that time he was dragging me around looking for the guy, I wasn’t sure what we’d find.” He glances sideways at her. “You trust him?”

“I trust Rogers. Aside from that, it’s a pretty short list.”

Sam nods, not disagreeing.

“You knew where he was this whole time, didn’t you?”

“Not all the time. Despite my best efforts I do go to sleep once in awhile.”

She’d been wrong in assuming Sam would be unhappy with her; it appears he understands because he chuckles at her half-hearted joke. “Good to know. You get close enough for any real surveillance?”

She nods.

“Yep.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“And?”

Rogers is still holding the Soldier, not speaking yet.

“I decided he deserved better than an unmarked grave somewhere cold and untraceable. So I brought him in.”

Sam grunts.

“Looks like you might have made the right call.” He nods at the two figures, who are beginning to separate. Natasha can’t hear what they’re saying, but it’s unnecessary. “You say how close you got?”

Natasha raises her brow.

“Close enough.”

Sam catches on.

“So, you, and… um, scary eyes over there.”

She nods. Sam whistles.

“Whoo. Okay. I mean, are you? Both? Okay?”

She shrugs.

“Probably okay. Definitely related. To each other. So. Relatively okay.”

Sam’s eyes go wide. She waits, but he seems to be at a loss for words. Perhaps the pun was too subtle. Or the revelation too…

“Not good?”

He closes his mouth, and opens it again.

“No. Well. Incest is generally frowned upon. So, um.”

“Thought so.” She crosses her arms. “Don’t tell Steve.”

“Right.”

“About all of it.” She stares ahead. “I will.”

She can feel Sam’s eyes on her.

“Now?”

She shakes her head.

“No.” Swallows. “He deserves to get angry with me. He won’t do that if I tell him today.”

* * *

Natasha borrows a truck from S.H.I.E.L.D. and goes for a drive.

She doesn’t go far, because she knows she’ll be needed. There will be legal issues as they determine how to move forward. The Winter Soldier is not technically in custody, but he still has actionable intelligence and it will take some time to determine how to handle his case. She also thinks it will be prudent to keep Tony’s interactions with Rogers to a minimum. Rogers tends to be more volatile when it comes to things he is sensitive about, and she’s not sure how defensive he will get when it comes to his seemingly resurrected best friend. It will be an emotional time, and it is likely that some less-than-rational decisions will be made. It would be wise to monitor their behavior in an intimate setting.

And that is all before taking into consideration what remains of Hydra. This will not have been their only plan, though she is sure that it was one of their last major ones. But their roots go deep, and there is plenty of work ahead of her.

But first she needs to make a call.

“Hey,” Natasha whispers into the phone, though there’s no reason to be quiet. All of the car’s surveillance equipment has been disabled. She hears him sigh, a million miles away, and winces. Winces like she never does when she takes a hit.

“Hey Romanoff.” His voice sounds dry.

“Been a while.” So does hers.

“I heard you were with Cap when everything went down.”

She holds the phone cord between her fingers.

“I’ve been having all sorts of fun without you.”

Three seconds.

“How do you feel?”

She doesn’t have to smile over the phone.

“You know how it is. It’s all fun and games until someone gets stabbed.”

He shifts.

“Then it’s just a regular Tuesday.” Grunts. “Sorry I couldn’t be there. It’s been a rough op.”

She understands. The cord bites into her thumb.

“You see the files?”

It sounds like he nods.

“Yeah. Some.”

She releases a breath.

“What do you think?”

“I think you did what you thought you had to.” It sounds rehearsed. “Like we always said.”

Her tongue feels numb.

“So you read mine.”

“If I had known what Pierce did with you-”

“I made a choice.”

“-I never would have brought you in.”

He pauses.

“What?”

“I made a choice.” She bites the inside of her cheek. “And I don’t know if it was the right one.”

Seven seconds of silence.

“What choice?”

Her breath is shallow.

“I chose you.”

Two seconds.

“I had a gun to your head.”

“Not then.” She gathers her thoughts. “They wanted me back.”

He sucks in a breath.

“Hydra?”

“Yes.”

Precisely one thousand five hundred and twenty two miles away the sun is rising over Clint Barton’s head.

“You thought about it.”

He doesn’t sound angry; it’s a good thing, unbelievably good.

“Where else was I supposed to go?”

“I’m sure they were thinking the same thing.”

“They’re wily like that.” She swallows. “But I didn’t.”

“You didn’t.”

He’s calm. It’s unnerving.

“I remembered what you said. What you asked me.”

He coughs.

“I was a jerk.”

“You asked me what I wanted.”

He laughs. Light, through his nose.

“I told you we remember Budapest very differently.”

Because he was sent there to kill her, and went off the reservation.

“Well. I made the right choice. Then.”

The receiver crackles.

“Then.”

“And now.” She inhales. “I wanted to be on your side.”

She knows what he thinks of her. They’ve agreed that they won’t argue about it anymore. But he still thinks it. She remembers how it feels to stand in the same position. Her back up against the wall. She was a half metre shorter, then. The barrel of his gun, the gun he wasn’t supposed to be carrying, was pressed against her forehead, right between her eyes. She knows what he saw. A kid, thin and shaking. It was the image that she traded on. Her wide eyes just made her look scared, her wiry frame made her look vulnerable. It was why her handlers sent her in alone. They thought he wouldn’t have a gun. Or if he did, well. They thought he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.

They were wrong.

She looked him in the eye, and she knew that he would. And she was expendable, and the KGB would know better, next time. They would know that skinny little girls wouldn’t phase Clint Barton.

 _You’re not afraid_ , he’d tipped his head to the left, waiting for her answer, favoring that side because of what she’d done to his right ear.

 _Of course not_.

_Do you want to die?_

_It does not matter_.

She’d waited for the gunshot.

 _What_ do _you want?_ She got that instead.

“You mean that literally or just metaphorically?”

She lets her head fall back against the wall.

“Not mutually exclusive.”

He hums in the affirmative.

“Are you alright?”

They have an understanding. He will try not to think of her like the first day he saw her, and she will try not to lie.

“Yeah.” She closes her eyes. “I’m all right.”

“I’m glad you called.”

She lets the words ripple through her body.

“Yeah. I am too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue will be posted within the hour.


End file.
